y^"r"> :*" "1 — ^ d^ 



\ 



AND OTHER SERMON'; 



RICE 




Class JdX-^Z^JSJS 
Book .1^4 3114 
Copyright iN^ ^^_____ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 



^- 



CERTAINTIES 
AND HOPES 

AND OTHER SERMONS 



BY 
CHARLES BAKER RICE 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

6OSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



^1^ 



<l,!)^ 



-^^-b^^ 



Copyright 1915 

BY THE 

Congregational Sunday- School 
AND Publishing Society 



f 

THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 

©CIA411284 

SEP -I 1915 



PREFACE 

Charles Baker Rice, D.D., was born in the 
hills of Franklin County, in the beautiful town 
of Conway, Massachusetts. His father was 
Colonel Austin Rice, a man widely known in 
his county. Colonel Austin Rice was a man 
devoted to the fear of God. He was a Puri- 
tan, genuine in his relations toward men, of 
large influence in his town and county. He 
was for many years a member of the Board of 
Trustees in Mt. Holyoke Seminary. 

In 1905 Dr. Rice wrote a memorial volume 
in honor of his father, Colonel Rice, and his 
mother, Charlotte Baker Rice. The little book 
so thoroughly revealed the beauty and piety 
and culture of a typical New England home 
in the Connecticut valley that the Editor of the 
Springfield Republican asked and received 
permission to publish it, in large part, in that 
paper. In this Christian home and community 
Charles Baker Rice grew up to manhood. It 
was a liberty-loving community, and early in 

[v] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

life he became deeply imbued with free-soil 
principles. In 1856, in the first campaign of 
the Republican party, he stumped Pennsyl- 
vania for Fremont and Dayton. 

He was the intimate friend of the elder 
Samuel Bowles. Both men were lovers of lib- 
erty and devoted members of the Republican 
party. All his life Dr. Rice continued an ear- 
nest member of this party. He appreciated 
its defects and limitations, but he never forgot 
the great debt which our country owes to the 
party of liberty. 

Dr. Rice graduated from Bangor Theolog- 
ical Seminary. His first parish was in Saco, 
Me. From Saco he came to Danvers, Mass., 
where he was pastor for thirty-one years. 

The two counties of Massachusetts he loved 
above all others were Franklin and Essex. 
His eyes would fill with tears whenever he 
spoke to the writer of Franklin County. The 
hill towns of that county grew increasingly 
dear to him as the years went by. He loved 
Essex County not only because of the personal 
associations of his long and happy pastorate, 
but also because of the large place which it 

[vi] 



PREFACE 

has had in the great struggle for liberty and 
equality. Essex County was the home of John 
G. Whittier, his own honored and loved friend. 
These two men were intimate. Charles Rice 
was a Puritan and Congregationalist ; John 
G. Whittier, a Friend ; but the two men were 
alike in their intense loyalty to the ideals of 
Jesus Christ, and their love for a true, free 
democracy. 

Charles B. Rice represented his town and 
county in the Legislature as Representative 
and as Senator. He also served the State on 
the Board of Education, and for many years 
he was a member of the School Committee of 
Danvers. 

He was a man of large heartedness. There 
wasn't in him a bit of narrowness. If all New 
Englanders had had the spirit of Charles B. 
Rice in his attitude toward the incoming stran- 
ger, Massachusetts and the Nation would be 
different. He was a democrat in the truest 
sense of the word. There was no aristocracy 
about him. He loved Massachusetts ideals. 
How often have I heard him quote the words 
of Article 30 of Part 1st of the Constitution 

[vii] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

of Massachusetts, "A government of laws and 
not of men." The interests of his mind and 
heart were world-wide. He had what Presi- 
dent Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia has 
called an "international mind." I recall his 
deep interest in the struggle between Russia 
and Japan. 

What a lover of good literature he was! 
How he loved Milton and the classic literature 
of our English language! He kept in living 
touch with the best writers of the English lan- 
guage. Yearly he read Euripides, ^schylus 
and Sophocles. Only a few days before he 
finally left his work, he was talking with a 
friend and spoke with enthusiasm of the 
beauty of these Greek writers ; and then look- 
ing up in his animated way, he said, "But the 
best things of the Greeks would seem common- 
place in comparison with the beauties of the 
prophetic Word." 

In 1894 he gave up his work as pastor of 
the ancient church of Danvers. How he loved 
that church! Among the gracious memories 
of his last days is a prayer which he offered 
in the family circle for that church. How he 

[viiij 



PREFACE 

loved the beautiful manse with its fields and 
fruit trees! How he loved nature itself! He 
never forgot the training of the life of the 
farm on the top of the hill in old Conway. 
Like Henry Ward Beecher, he had a great 
love for precious stones. He always carried 
some in his vest pocket. It was a joy to see 
him hold them in the palm of his hand. His 
love for precious stones made him enjoy the 
imagery of the book of Revelation. 

In 1894 he was chosen to be the first Secre- 
tary of the newly constituted Congregational 
Board of Pastoral Supply. He entered upon 
an untried work. To it he brought his 
large, wide knowledge of men. He knew 
their limitations, but he knew their best. He 
took men at their best. For nineteen years 
he faithfully served the pastors of Massachu- 
setts and of New England. He was faith- 
ful to the churches as well as to the pas- 
tors. The more one knew him, the more 
one appreciated his charitable judgment of 
men and churches; and here is his own judg- 
ment of the work which he did, in a series of 
"Suggestions or Hints relative to the Office 

JixJ 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

of the Board of Pastoral Supply — for what- 
ever they may be worth — by Charles B. Rice, 
May 10, 1913;" "For the Occupants of the 
Office." He closes with Hint 20, 

"The work and life of the office should be 
enjoyed. It is a useful work, animating in its 
usefulness. It has much variety. It has its 
difficulties; but they are not greater than it 
is wholesome for one to meet. It may have 
disagreeable features or incidents. But its dis- 
agreeable features vanish away or are greatly 
lightened, as is the case in all life, when they 
are met with a clear and constant and strong 
purpose to do one's duty as exactly and gra- 
ciously as possible." 

He was a Congregationalist to the core ; he 
loved the independency of the Congregational 
Church. He was glad in every good word 
and work in the denomination. He was a man 
of devout Christian character. He did not 
carry his heart on his sleeve ; he was not given 
to emotional expression of his faith and ex- 
perience. But he had a deep reverence for 
God. The beautiful expression in the 119th 
Psalm may be used of him; he was a man "de- 



PREFACE 

voted to the fear of God." He was an impar- 
tial man; he was not a self-seeker, either for 
himself or for his family. 

What a royal friend he was! Those of us 
who had a place in the inner sanctuary of his 
heart know how devotedly he loved. What a 
large fund of humanity he had ! How he loved 
the children whom he met near the school as he 
came up from the North Station to his office! 
How he brought in his bag apples and gave 
out to the youngsters and rejoiced in their 
brightening faces as they took them! How he 
appreciated the kindly offices of the policeman 
at the crossing ! How the boy with his evening 
paper always met him graciously! How the 
people loved to look at him as he passed along 
the street, the grand old man whose face was 
filled with the light of the glory of God! 

It does not become me to speak of his home 
life. That was a sanctuary to him; and those 
of us who knew him best knew the warmth of 
afPection for his home, for wife and children. 
Now and again he would open his heart and 
mind and talk with the writer upon the deeper 
things of Hfe, upon the certainties and the 

[xi] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

hopes of the Christian. It was good to know 
a man hke Charles Baker Rice. It is good to 
know that we have the hope and the assurance 
of knowing him as he was, and as he has been 
transfigured into the image of the Master 
whom he has loved and so long faithfully 
served. 

Frederick E. Emrich. 
Boston, July 12, 1915. 



Ixii] 



CONTENTS 

Preface v 

I. Certainties and Hopes of Human Life 3 

II. The Twenty-Third Psalm ... 23 

III. Prayer 41 

IV. Goodness and Greatness ... 63 

V. The Blessings of Rational Existence 91 

VI. The Omnipotence of God . . . 115 

VII. The Extent and Nature of the 

Authority of Christ . . . . 145 

VIII. The Righteous Judgment of God . 167 

IX. Easily Besetting Sins .... 191 

X. Memory in Man 209 

XI. The Tongue, "The Glory of Our 

Frame" 227 

XII. Thoughts of Personal Responsibility 247 

XIII. A Wise Heart with Age . . . 269 

XIV. The State of Heaven .... 287 



[ xiii ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES OF 
HUMAN LIFE 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES OF 
HUMAN LIFE 

Psalms 119 : 19. I am a stranger in the earth; hide 
not thy commandments from me. 

Hebrews 6:19. Which hope we have as an anchor 
of the soul, sure and steadfast, and which entereth into 
that within the vail. 

The stranger or the traveler in a foreign 
land thinks much of the messages that may 
come to him from his home. He looks for 
them at the appointed times or places. The 
sailor, when he may not reach his harbor, is 
glad even of a roadstead where his anchors will 
hold fast. The commandments of the Lord 
are messages to men, otherwise as strangers 
in a lonely land. The truths of the Christian 
revelation hold steady in hope the souls of men, 
otherwise as vessels in unknown waters, drift- 
ing upon an unlighted shore. 

I purpose to speak of some of the things 
that may be confidently counted on concerning 
the life or state of man. The certainties of 

[3] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

human life are not the same as its hopes ; some- 
times they seem to be the certainties of despair. 
But the hopes of hfe must be fitted to its cer- 
tainties and must lay hold on them, or they 
will be vain hopes only. We will trace out as 
we may some of the primal certainties of our 
human state, and we will lay the lines of hope 
upon them as best we can. Our topic might 
be briefly named: — The things certain, or the 
things certainly to be hoped for, in religion 
and in human life. And while we look over 
a little our human heritage in being and hope, 
may the living God Himself guide our 
thoughts and strengthen our hearts. 

Among certainties, it is certain first, that 
our present natural earthly lives will soon end. 
We shall not live here always, nor long. On 
this point there is a grim assurance of posi- 
tiveness that does not need to be dwelt upon. 
No one has ever shown any signs of living, or 
of being about to live, on the earth forever. 
We are mortal, and swift in our mortality. 
The present living life of the earth, as com- 
pared with the life that is past and dead, is 
only as the narrow line of flame that runs 

[4] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

across a field when the dried grasses are 
burned. There is a thin edge only of flicker- 
ing and soon dying fire, and all behind it, the 
field is black. So this flame of our present 
life will go out quickly in darkness — we must 
reckon upon this. 

It follows, certainly, that if we are to have 
any hope of lasting life, it cannot be here on 
the earth, as things now are. If we are to 
hold any long-reaching hopes at all, they must 
go out upon some other, different stage of 
being. The continuing greatness of human 
life, if there is any such, is not here. Our 
enduring possessions, if we have any, will be 
somewhere else. It is clear, too, that if we 
are ever to have any such lasting stage of life, 
beyond the present, the things belonging to 
that stage of life must be of the greatest im- 
portance. And if there are any things now 
within ourselves, or belonging to us, that are 
to pass on into that coming, enduring state, 
then these must be the main things for us. 
Our chief care must be about the enduring 
things with us, if there are any such things. 

It is certain that our present lives, even 

[5] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

while they last, are not altogether what they 
ought to be. They are mixed with evil; and 
they are partly evil. We are ourselves at least 
in some degree sinful. I do not think this 
needs to be proved. If there is any one to 
whom it is not clear, I think it ought to be 
clear to him. The state of the man with no 
sense of the liability to sin, or of the actual ex- 
istence of sin, in others and in himself, is not, 
I think, most sound or wholesome. We are 
infected, more or less, with evil. So that the 
entrance in some manner upon a sinless state 
is certainly among the things to be hoped for, 
— if it is possible to hope for it. We have thus 
these things, — continuance in life, and perfec- 
tion of life to be hoped for. We certainly do 
not possess them here. It is to be desired that 
we should gain them if we may. 

Going on further, it may be said that there 
is some natural and reasonable ground for 
hope of a coming endless and possibly better 
life for man. I am leaving aside for the pres- 
ent all Biblical testimonies, and am speaking 
here only in these terms of possible hope. 
There is a natm-al hope of immortality. Many 

[6] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

persons have not had it; and there are many 
with whom it has not been steadily strong. 
But many also have kept it steadily. It is a 
hope that multitudes of men at least love and 
cherish, and hold as closely as they can. In 
some lights this natural hope of immortality 
looks strong and wonderful. It must be 
strong to keep at all its place in the midst of 
all the natural conditions that would weaken 
and shatter it. This hope lasts in spite of the 
constant knowledge we have that all the pres- 
ent powers of life appear to depend upon the 
health and soundness of the body, while the 
body is known to be most frail. This hope 
can look in the face of death and of utter 
bodily dissolution. It can witness the unre- 
turning departure of those that die, and can 
endure the unbroken silence of all the dead. 
It is a mighty hope that these mighty foes 
have not cast down. The endurance so far 
of such a hope in the midst of all these sur- 
rounding darknesses is in itself a strong 
ground of hope. It is best that we should 
rest upon it, if we can. It is desirable for us 
certainly to keep that inmiortal hope. 

[7] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

Besides this hope, and standing fast by it, 
we have in our present life a constraining 
and solid sense of duty. That is to be much 
thought of when we are looking for human 
certainties, or continuing prospects. A pecul- 
iar firmness rests in this sense of duty, how- 
ever we came by it. When you know your 
duty, nothing can possibly make you think 
that it is not best for you to do it. You may 
not always know surely what your duty is; 
but when you do know it, you have struck 
on something that stands fast. You may not 
always do what you know you ought to do; 
often we turn back from duty. But we never 
think, and never can think, that it is better 
that we should not do our duty. We know 
that right-doing is for the best. This is a 
certainty that nothing can ever really shake. 
When a man loses his life in the discharge of 
duty, it may be shocking to think of: we may 
feel that we should not have blamed him much, 
or perhaps at all, if he had shrunk back; but 
we never think that a man makes a mistake, 
really, in going on, even to death, in what he 
knows is the clear way of duty. Something 

[8] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

tells us that duty and lasting safety belong 
together, whether a man lives or dies. In the 
end of things we are sure of it. 

This certainty that duty and final safety go 
in the end together is most impressive and sig- 
nificant. We feel that we have struck upon 
something that does not belong with the shift- 
ing and passing current of earthly things, but 
with things that are in some manner unchange- 
able and eternal. We are encouraged to be- 
lieve that there are such unchangeable and 
lasting things. We gain a sense of the exist- 
ence and properly controlling authority of 
somewhat that is above the earth, and that 
is supreme above all present things. The 
voice of duty is among the sweetest of all 
sounds that ever reach the earth. It is a voice 
from above the clouds, from beyond the chang- 
ing lights and shadows. We know a little as 
we hear it, where we are. And we rejoice 
that though we are strangers in the earth, God 
is not hiding altogether His commandments 
from us. Following this voice we may reach 
om* home. 

We may see that this sense of the certain 

[9] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

safety and supremacy of duty easily connects 
itself with that hope of human immortality of 
which I have spoken. They are likely both 
together to be springing out of an eternal 
source. It is likely too, that that source is the 
being of an inmiortal and rightfully governing 
God. 

Here we take another great step of hope. 
We need not stop much for formal attempted 
proofs. We are following the lines of hopeful 
and desirable probabihties. Those are the use- 
ful lines of common practical judgment and 
safety. Thus we believe in God. We think 
that we see reflected a little upon our human 
nature the steadfast glory and commanding 
greatness of an infinite Being from whom our 
lives are sprung, and we rejoice in the thought. 

In some part indeed, our belief in God rests 
upon grounds of most clear and unchangeable 
certainty. The creation about us, and within 
us, to which we belong, bears witness to it. 
It is known that an intelligent Almightiness 
occupies the creation in all its masses and in 
every atom. It is not a matter of question in 
the least, that within this universal Power we 

[10] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

ourselves "live and move and have our being." 
If there could ever have been any rational 
doubt concerning the pervasive presence and 
the full control of this Power throughout the 
creation, that doubt has utterly vanished with 
the studies of nature in our own times. Of 
a certainty such a Power surrounds and 
grasps, penetrates and orders the visible 
creation. 

That this universal Power possesses also all 
the distinctive qualities of personal life, we 
may not in the same positive manner know. 
But it is most hopeful and most reasonable 
to believe it. It is likely that the supreme 
Intelligence, ordering and animating the crea- 
tion, is intelligent and free concerning itself. 
We ourselves have the crowning gift of per- 
sonal life. It is likely that it is found most 
full with Him who gives it to us. Thus with 
trembling, rejoicing confidence we recognize 
Him, the majestic Father of men. Thus with 
mighty awe and mighty hope, we call Him 
the "King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only 
God." 

Beheving thus in God, it is reasonable for 

[ 11 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

US to believe that He might make some especial 
disclosure of Himself to us beyond that which 
we could gather from nature through our nat- 
ural powers of thought. Our hopes certainly, 
would lead us to look for or to receive such 
a further and fuller revelation of God. It 
would be good news from God. 

It is certain too, that if there has been given 
us any such special revelation, it is the Chris- 
tian revelation. There is no other to place 
before it, or beside it. It is the Christian good 
news, the Christian gospel, or none at all. 
Still further, we can quickly see that the Chris- 
tian revelation, as we have it in the Bible, is 
well suited to our wants. The Christian gos- 
pel recognizes our present Human life as it is, 
— ^mortal, frail, and brief, mixed with weak- 
ness and sin, and yet with hopes and powers 
looking toward lasting good. It makes known 
God, pure, holy, and lofty, as He ought to be, 
and yet gracious and forgiving. It sets the 
standard of human life and character high, and 
yet gives hope for those that stumble and fall. 
It makes known to us that God has care and 
love for men. It shows that God draws nigh 

[12] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

to men, and comes Himself, to be as one of 
us. In this om* human hfe is distinguished 
from all other mortal life on earth, and is 
marked out as equipped for possible immor- 
tality. So we are given the hope of an endless 
life with God, and of being in some likeness 
ourselves to God. And I think we may add 
that with those who receive and cherish and 
employ its truths and powers, this Christian 
gospel gives some present proof of gain in 
strength and purity of soul, as if they were 
in preparation somewhat for an endless and 
sinless life. 

This Christian revelation — this Christian 
plan, is surely wide-reaching and full of hope. 
The central feature of it is the Person whose 
name it bears. He is pictured as the Son of 
man and the Son of God, as a man of un- 
equalled majesty and unequalled tenderness, 
as walking in conspicuously close companion- 
ship with God, and in sympathetic nearness 
to the weakness and sinfulness of men; as 
dying in some manner for the sins of men; 
as foreseeing and declaring — unlike to any 
other man — the continuance and completion 

[13] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

of His purpose beyond His death and by His 
death; as purposing and promising that after 
the darkness of death His followers should 
be with Him and should behold His glory; 
as appointing in the presence of death a sacra- 
ment of memorial, significant of life and death 
and the remission of sins; and as returning 
from His death to the sight of His followers, 
kindling in their minds a steadfast and rev- 
erent love for Himself, an abiding purpose of 
service in rightness of life, and an unquench- 
able hope of immortality. 

Such an One is surely a fitting Leader of 
mankind into holiness and everlasting life, if 
such leadership is ever to be given to man. It 
is certainly hopeful for us to follow such a 
Leader; it is likely to be safe. It is surely 
not hopeful not to follow Him. It may not 
be safe. There is a force of reason in the 
saying that he that believeth on the Son of 
God shall reach to everlasting life, and none 
besides. 

Difficulties, doubts, and oppositions may 
arise, and they are ever arising. We must 
distinguish somewhat between them. The 

[14] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

Scriptures in which we have the record of this 
Christian revelation are always open to rev- 
erent and careful study. The fully confirmed 
conclusions of such study are always to be 
accepted, even if some change is thus made 
upon the opinions we have held. But the 
study must be honest, thorough and conclu- 
sive. It is fair also and proper to say that 
as Christian men we should not be forward to 
denounce in a positive and sweeping manner 
conclusions unlike to our own, that may be put 
forth by other reverent and true-hearted Chris- 
tian men. It may be that we shall ourselves 
at some time accept those same conclusions. 

But there are also views, more or less threat- 
ening to the general faith of the Christian 
church, which have their origin in preconceived 
natural or philosophical theories and specula- 
tions. Those theories or behefs may be no 
more solid than other beliefs that are contrary 
to them. For instance, some people set aside 
at once whatever in the Biblical records asserts 
or impMes any departure or variation from 
the present ordinary apparent course of out- 
ward nature as connected with human Hfe. 

[15] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

But this is not the most hopeful view. If our 
human life is ever to pass on into an immortal 
stage, it must be by some departure from the 
present apparent course of nature, or by some 
growth beyond it, and such deviation from 
nature or growth beyond it, if it may ever 
occur in future, may also possibly have oc- 
curred at some points and in some degree in 
the past. And if there is any coming endless 
stage of human life, it is likely that the powers 
and agencies of that life are now and eternally 
in existence and activity; and they may pos- 
sibly make themselves known upon fitting 
occasions in the present time. And if there 
is, as there is, an eternal God, who is the 
Author and Framer of nature, and in whom 
the whole order and power and substance of 
nature rests, then it is likely, yes, certain that 
within nature, and without shattering the 
frame of nature, this God may bring to pass 
results differing from the common course of 
nature, upon occasions befitting the exercise 
of His own reason and grace. Further, if 
there has been once on the earth a man living 
the life of holiness and strength, and walking 

[16] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

as if He were upon the very confines of the 
land of hohness and immortahty, it need not 
seem incredible to us that for a holy and benefi- 
cent purpose, God should raise up that man 
from the dead. It should scarcely seem in- 
credible or unlikely that such a man, in closest 
fellowship with God, should have power Him- 
self both to lay down His life and to take it 
again. That such an event should have oc- 
curred is assuredly a thing most hopeful for 
us, and most quickening to all our thoughts 
of a life for ourselves beyond this passing 
time. For thus is He our Forerunner; and 
thus has He become the first fruits of those 
that sleep, and of those that are yet to sleep. 
The fact cannot be altogether forgotten, 
that the attempted removal of all the appar- 
ently supernatural features or elements in the 
Scriptural record must almost of necessity 
weaken somewhat the grounds of Christian 
confidence concerning a future life for man. 
In so far it is a darkening labor, downward 
against hope. If there are sometimes those, 
who, while they are thus laboring, exhibit an 
exhilaration of spirit, as if they were pioneers 

[17] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

upon the path of progress, we cannot sympa- 
thize with them in such a mind. If our pros- 
pects of immortahty were to be obscured, we 
might of necessity endure it; but we should 
not rejoice. If we are made to look only into 
a coming night, we must not be called upon 
to be glad. If we are to walk consciously down 
into the eternal darkness, we shall not sing as 
we go. Rather do we take up for ourselves the 
mighty word of promise, and say — "Blessed 
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who according to His great mercy hath 
begotten us again unto a living hope by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 
unto an inheritance incorruptible and unde- 
filed and that fadeth not away, reserved in 
heaven for us who are kept by the power of 
God through faith unto a salvation ready to 
be revealed in the last time." 

We have looked together upon some of the 
plain certainties of our human lives ; and we 
have sought wherever we could, to follow the 
lines of hope. Our lives are mortal, and 
stained with evil. But the commandments of 
the Lord are not hidden from us. We hear 

[18] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

the solemn glorious voice of duty, and the 
melodies of hope. We draw nigh in faith 
and reason to God, the maker of all things 
and the source of life. We welcome the com- 
ing to us of the holy Son of God, our Re- 
deemer, who stands also now for us by the 
throne of God. We believe in Him ; and may 
He help our unbelief. 

This word of good tidings is preached to us 
every Sabbath day in all our places of holy 
assembling. We have it with us in every soli- 
tary hour of remembrance and meditation. I 
trust that we shall all receive and hold fast 
this Christian hope. It may not suffice to 
scatter every darkening doubt, or quench every 
mortal fear. Yet it is a hope full of immor- 
tality. It has need to be held fast. It is to 
be kept, with faith and purpose, and by sacred 
counselling with God. It is a hope that will 
not make us ashamed. It is a hope that "en- 
tereth into that within the vail;" a hope that 
takes a hand of duty and leads us, that strives 
at least to lead us, toward the land of holy and 
perpetual habitation. And in that land we 
shall cease to be pilgrims and strangers. 

[19] 



II 

THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 



II 

THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

It is our work in life to be quickly gather- 
ing goodness and strength from God within 
ourselves. As we read the Psalms, it belongs 
to us to be fashioning our souls under the light 
and grace that thus pass before us. 

This Psalm is a picture of the behever's life. 
With its few touches, strong and beautiful, 
it sets forth the way of faith on earth. 

The picture is first of all, one of cheerful- 
ness and hope. It opens brightly; — "The Lord 
is my Shepherd, I shall not want." It ends 
brightly; — "Surely goodness and mercy shall 
follow me all the days of my life, and I will 
dwell in the house of the Lord forever." And 
in the space between, wherever any shadows 
he, there is still no fear of evil. The whole 
view is trustful, restful, hopeful. The believ- 
ing man is to be cared for as a sheep by its 
shepherd. He is to be guided, fed, and 
guarded. He is to suffer no want and be af- 

[23] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

frighted by no danger. Goodness from above 
is to follow him and be about him all his life. 
Mercy is to go along with that goodness, so 
that he may not be forsaken in any trouble, 
and so that he need not be left hopeless even 
if he sins. The life that is thus before us is 
cheerful and hopeful, it is prosperous and safe. 

But the view of life here given us includes 
the things that are in themselves dark and 
sorrowful. The shadings are in it. It would 
not be a true view of life if they were not. 
Here are enemies by the way. Here is the 
valley of the shadow of death to be passed 
through. If we had only the sketch of a life 
light and gay, with no darkness at all upon 
it, there would be no more of comfort for us 
in it than there would be of truth. We should 
have different experiences ourselves, which the 
story of the Psalm would not fit, and which the 
promise of the Psalm would not help us to 
bear. But the dark things are to be seen here ; 
and we know that the safety and cheerfulness 
and peace of the Psalm include them and shine 
over them. 

Our enemies here spoken of stand for all 

[24} 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

oppositions and hindrances. The valley of the 
shadow of death stands for all fears and dark- 
ness. It may be our sickness, or the sickness 
of our friends when we or they seem to be near 
to death, or it may be when we or they are 
indeed soon to die; or when they are dead 
and are gone from us ; or it may be when, for 
whatever cause, some urgent and dreadful 
heaviness and darkness are upon us. The 
valley of the shadow of death is not an un- 
known spot to any of the wayfarers of the 
earth, unless it be to those who pass through 
it so early or so quickly that they do not see 
it as they pass. 

The fears and sadness of life are in this 
Psalm. But the Shepherd and Keeper of our 
souls walks beside us with His rod and staff. 
Thus the hope we have as believers in God is 
not because we suppose that He will remove 
out of the way before us every trouble or sor- 
row; it is because we know that He Himself 
will uphold and guide us, and will enable us 
to pass through every trouble and sorrow in 
safety, and with growing strength. 

The assured continuous and final prosperity 

[25] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

of the believer's life appears in this also, that 
he not only passes through every trial without 
loss, but that he gains often much of light and 
strength and grace in the trial and by the trial, 
as he goes through with it. While his foes 
are looking on, a table is prepared before him. 
It is in the presence of his enemies, not seldom, 
that he grows most fixedly courageous and 
steadfast and gracious. 

In the sorrows of life we all may learn what 
things are most secure and valuable, and what 
Friend may be most certainly and happily 
relied on. The great things of life are not 
perpetual lightness and gladness of mind, if 
these were possible. The great things are a 
devout and steady hope and peace and rest 
in faith. These things will never be taken 
from us. The Psalm describes the trustful 
life as exposed to griefs and perils, but still 
as securely safe and prosperous. 

Farther, this hfe of which the Psalmist 
speaks, is a hfe of which God is peculiarly the 
Guide and Keeper. It is a life divinely led, 
protected and blessed. The account of it 
bjegins thus; — "The Lord is my Shepherd." 

,[26 J 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

This is why it is secure and prosperous. When 
this can be certainly known of any Hfe, all 
the other things that are spoken of in the 
Psalm may also be known as sure to follow. 
It is an unusual assurance. The sheep of a 
common flock may not be sure always of pro- 
tection and pasturage at the shepherd's hands. 
The shepherd may not be always watchful, or 
he may not be strong enough to keep off all 
attacks, or the streams and pastures where he 
would lead them may dry up and fail. But 
nothing like this can ever befall those whom 
the Lord has undertaken to provide for and 
guard. This is the chief thing with the safe 
and hopeful life here pictured, that the Lord 
has the care of it, and that it rests in His power 
and love. Thus it is always hopeful, and thus 
its hopefulness covers the naturally dark parts 
of the way, as well as the parts that would of 
themselves be light. It is a life everywhere 
under the hand of God. 

And now it may be seen that this life is 
thus in the care of God according to the be- 
lieving man's own choice. The protection of 
this kindly and powerful Providence is not 

[27] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

thrust upon him, as something outside his own 
wishes or efforts. He desires and chooses it 
for himself. This is impHed in the whole lan- 
guage and temper of the Psalm. When one 
speaks thus gratefully and trustfully, — "The 
Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," and 
when he says, "I will dwell in the house of the 
Lord forever," the consent and choice of the 
heart are in it. He wishes and means to have 
it so. The confidence, too, which is here ex- 
pressed is in the nature of it a sentiment exer- 
cised and cherished by the man himself. If 
we trust in God, the trust is ours, and must 
be. If the Shepherd leads the sheep, and they 
follow safely after him, the following at least 
is theirs. It is the sheep that follow. This 
part is therefore for us. We must be ready 
to follow; and we must be following. 

It would not do therefore for anyone to be 
thinking only of the power and goodness of 
the Shepherd, and of the safety and joy of 
a hfe watched over in aU its parts by him, if 
he did no more than think of it ; if he did not 
trustfully and thankfully place his own life 
under this great and gracious guidance. This 

[28] 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

it is for us to do. If you see to-day, any of 
you, something of what it might be to have 
the Lord for your Shepherd, and to be cared 
for in all your life by Him, and if you have 
not placed yourself by your own full and 
hearty choice under His care and guidance, 
do not let this indispensable condition of the 
good that you see and desire be any longer 
delayed or neglected. Take up these words 
of faith as your own. Say now for yourself, 
with clear acceptance and purpose of heart, — 
"The Lord is my Shepherd." 

Now it is to be observed that this safe and 
cheerful life of chosen trust in God is a life in 
the ways of righteousness. The Psalmist says ; 
"He leadeth me in the paths of righteous- 
ness for His name's sake." The "name of 
God" is rightly interpreted in the Assembly's 
Shorter Catechism, as signifying in a connec- 
tion like this, all that by which God makes 
Himself known. God's name is that by which 
He discloses Himself or causes Himself to be 
distinguished or recognized as God. God's 
concern for His name signifies the carefulness 
He has that the things spoken or done as by 

[29] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

Him shall truly represent the essential recti- 
tude of His own character and being. Thus 
it is becoming to Himself that He should lead 
in ways of holiness those that trust in Him. 
To lead them in other ways would be to distort 
and reverse the unchangeable verity of His 
own eternal life. So deeply are fixed the rules 
of righteousness for man. 

So it is that those green pastures and still 
waters of refreshment and rest are not in the 
lands of sin, and cannot be. The safety and 
joy of the life here spoken of consist in their 
very nature chiefly in this, that such a life is 
kept by a holy God in ways of holiness. 
Therefore it is hopeful, therefore it is bright, 
secure and prosperous, because it is not outside 
the shining bounds of duty and love, and be- 
cause it is held forever by the hand of God 
and by choice of its own in the paths of right- 
eousness. It belongs to us to walk in these 
ways with carefulness and with thankfulness, 
both together. 

And now we find that this trustful, hopeful, 
safe and holy life, guided of God and with 
man's own choice and effort in it, is a life that 

[30] 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

comes at length to a perpetual home in the 
house of the Lord. It reaches its conclusion, 
or the place of its endless continuance in some 
special and blissful nearness to God. It is a 
divine life through all the way, and it is every- 
where in the presence of God, but it comes at 
last in some peculiar manner to be with Him 
as if in His own house and home. We are not 
forbidden to think that there may be, even 
for the most high God who inhabits His 
creation, such a home — the central abode of 
warmth and glory, or many such — into which 
are gathered for long continuance the faithful 
men who inherit the promises. 

It may be that the writer of the Psalm did 
not have distinctly in mind when he used these 
words any such dwelling-place of God and of 
faithful men with Him, — as if in Heaven. 
But he surely meant to speak of a strong 
desire and hope he had concerning his dwelling 
forever where the most might be seen and 
known of God. It may be that there was at 
first in his mind the house of God, or the place 
of His special worship at Jerusalem, or wher- 
ever it may then have been. But it has always 

[31] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

been easy for the believing man to pass in his 
thought from the earthly place and state of 
worship to the heavenly. Thus by the "house 
of God" we ourselves might mean either the 
one or the other. They are not far unlike. 
What is here foretold is that as the believer's 
life goes on and grows to its fulness it reaches 
at last a state in which it is peculiarly near to 
God in love and trust and worship and in like- 
ness of spirit, and a state in which it enjoys 
peculiarly the manifestations of the being and 
character of God. 

Our present acts of worship as we come here 
to this house of God, help us forward to such 
a stage of life, and our coming finally to it 
may fitly be called a dwelling in His house 
forever. 

Thus every trusting man, though he may be 
much cast down by trials, and hindered and 
put back by oppositions and by sins, will come 
at length to a state in which he will rejoice 
altogether in the love, holiness and blessing of 
God, and in the hearty service which he is 
permitted to render forever to Him. 

So we have in this Psalm a kind of summary 

[ 32 ] 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

of the Christian believer's life. God leads 
him, with comfort and safety and rest, in ways 
of righteousness, to His own presence, and to 
the full knowledge of Himself, and the full 
joy of endless life with Him. The believing 
life begins as this Psalm does with the saying 
— "The Lord is my Shepherd;" it ends as this 
Psalm does with an entrance upon a perpetual 
dwelling in the house of the Lord. Thus ever 
may the paths of earth draw nigh to the doors 
of Heaven. Thus does this Psalm abide along 
the shifting earthly generations of believing 
men — ^known by heart — a psalm of distant 
memories and far-coming hopes. Thus it may 
still be borne in remembrance by those who 
have passed to the lands of immortality. They 
may still sing or repeat with united voices the 
familiar strains, changing alone the words that 
mark the passing time. So to-day they say, — 
"Yea, though I have walked through the valley 
of the shadow of death, yet have I feared no 
evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy 
staff, they comfort me. Surely goodness and 
mercy do follow me all the days of my life, 
and I am dwelling in the house of the Lord 

[33] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

forever." Thus may we gather within our- 
selves the everlasting harmonies, whose notes 
we faintly hear, and in this very hour may 
we all begin or renew this Psalm, this song 
of faith, hope, and love and of endless life. 

Perhaps you may think that a life of such 
steadfast rest and hope is above you and be- 
yond your reach. Then it should be said that 
this is a picture of the life you should aim at 
and toward which you should direct your de- 
sires and thoughts. It is not meant that the 
view should discourage you, even though you 
see it far above you. It is meant to give you 
hope and strength while you look upon it. 
Take to yourself the faith, the hope, the 
strength. You will not fail to reach and to 
renew and repeat within yourself all that the 
Psalm contains. Our walking along the paths 
of life is with slow steps, and it may be with 
much stumbling. The songs of life rise into 
the air above us, and they go smoothly. But 
it is best to hear the songs. 

The most precious things of human life are 
born of such faith and hope as this Psalm 
records. In our times the close relation be- 

[34] 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

tween the life of man and the life of all the 
animal tribes about us is much in our thoughts. 
Misgivings may sometimes come upon us lest 
there should seem to be nothing to distinguish 
our destiny from theirs. In many things the 
life of man is indeed of the earth, and is earthy. 
It is linked in origin and nurture with all the 
life of the surrounding world, and it may seem 
likely to be appointed to share the general 
frailness and to fall beneath the universal mor- 
tality. But in the soul of man and even in 
the bosom of nature, there are kindlings of 
powers that will grow imperishable. These 
psalms, all the long reviving records of faith 
and hope are the signs with man of discern- 
ments and destinies beyond the present time. 
They reveal his fellowship with the everlasting 
Righteousness and his kinship with the eternal 
Life. 

In all scientific or natural induction and 
forecast concerning the endurance and destiny 
of human life these facts, — these psalms of 
life, are to be included and reckoned on. It is 
not reasonable that they should be left out. 
Man is not only an animal that is born and 

[35] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

eats and grows and works and rests and dies. 
Man is an animal singing songs of rational and 
endless hope. He is likely to reach to an 
answering destiny. It may agree no more 
with the steadfast counsel of nature that the 
dust of an earthly body should return to its 
kindred dust than that a soul, singing songs 
of everlasting consolation and gracious hope 
should ascend to its dwelling with the Father 
of spirits. These psalms, all the recorded holy 
confidences of man help to sustain the inmost 
hopes of man. They uphold the trust which 
they express. The vein of imperishable hope 
they bear is itself a rational ground of hope. 
Thus these sacred histories of human life, these 
psalms, of themselves cast a light along the 
paths of the earth, and across the valley of 
the shadow of death. Thus with reason, faith 
nourishes faith. 

So our faith is strengthened with reason as 
we walk with faithful men. So too our own 
faith may uphold with reason the faith of other 
men that walk with us. Thus too as we walk 
with faith in the paths of righteousness we 
strengthen within ourselves the present pow- 

[36] 



THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM 

ers of immortality, and we obey the solenrn 
and lofty word which bids us lay hold upon 
an eternal life. If you would have your soul 
to live, learn the songs of hope. 

You may consider too, that in these psalms, 
and in much besides of all these sacred records, 
God speaks to you out of the hearts and lives 
of men. You have not only His own word 
of promise and welcome, but you have besides 
these lofty and grateful sayings of your com- 
panions in life who have made trial of His 
guidance and love. You have them both to- 
gether. This Psalm is the word of God, but 
it is the word of man. It is the word of God 
entering into the life of man, and becoming 
the word of man. So these psalms are songs 
concerning God in the speech of men. We 
hear together in them the voice of God and 
the voices of those who have loved and trusted 
Him. The sweetness and hope of life are in 
this alliance of life with God. 

These things are for you. Take to yourself 
this promise, this security, this gladness, this 
righteousness, this continuing and eternal near- 
ness to God. Try it for yourself. Learn for 

[37] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

yourself these songs of trust and hope. Learn 
to make them. You should do more than to 
repeat with your lips the songs that other men 
have made. You should learn to sing songs 
in your life. It is better that your life should 
sing than that it should be only heavy and 
dumb. Your life should sing of faith and 
hope so that others will hear the songs and 
learn them of you. Your life should be a life 
of psalms. 

Begin the psalm by saying now for your- 
self — "The Lord is my Shepherd." Then you 
may go on continually to say — "I shall not 
want; goodness and mercy shall follow me, 
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for- 
ever." Thus may "He who brought again 
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great 
Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of 
the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in 
every good work to do His will, working in 
you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, 
through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for 
ever and ever. Amen." 



[38] 



Ill 

PRAYER 



Ill 

PRAYER 

Matthew 7 : 7. Ask and it shall be given you. 
Matthew 6:10. Thy kingdom come. Thy will he 
done on earth as it is in heaven. 

The Bible is to be used with the best use 
of our human reason. The sayings of the 
Bible concerning prayer need to be considered 
in their connection, and in relation to their 
particular purpose. They need often to be 
compared, one with another. The sayings of 
the Lord Jesus have need also to be compared 
with His own recorded prayers, and with His 
own conduct in relation to prayer. 

The first of these two texts might make us 
think that we might pray for anything that 
we desired, and expect to have it. The second 
text would lead us to conclude that the thing 
first to be prayed for is that the will of God 
Himself might be recognized as supreme 
throughout the whole earth. Holding these 

[41] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

things in mind, I purpose to make some re- 
marks upon the Reasonable Use of Prayer. 

I. I remark first — it is desirable that 
human affairs should be ordered of God : that 
is, that the will of God should be done in the 
earth. God reigns in the earth not altogether 
by His own inherent and unalterable suprem- 
acy, but in part, also, by the free choice of 
men upon whom He has bestowed the pow- 
ers of choice. Looking thus in our freedom 
upon it, we see that it is best altogether 
that He should reign in the earth. God can 
direct in human affairs better than any man 
could do it. He knows the world better. He 
knows men better. He is more wise, more 
just, more gracious. He has a steadier and 
better purpose. 

We can understand a little what confusion 
would fill the earth if the ordering of things 
were left to any man, or any group of men 
— or if it were left to us. So far as there is 
choice with us, we should surely pray with 
all our hearts that the will of God might be 
sought out, respected and followed throughout 
the whole earth. 

[42] 



PRAYER 

II. It is natural and proper to pray to 
God. Our thoughts of God and of our own 
necessities impel us to pray. Most men do 
pray — to some extent and in some manner. 
If there is a Universal Spirit, upholding all 
things, and the source of all life, it is natural 
that men whose lives are from Him should 
have desires which they would wish to present 
before Him. It is likely too, if He is wise 
and gracious, that He will be willing that men 
should do it. It is not hkely therefore, what- 
ever else may be said, that prayer will ever 
cease to be made. 

If indeed prayer did harm to those that 
pray, or to any one else, or if certain kinds 
of prayer did harm, then we should need to 
be careful how we prayed. And we do need 
to be careful. But I think we know that when 
we pray, or try to pray, aright, our praying 
tends to make us better in body and soul, in 
business and in character. I think we under- 
stand that if we were to pray more than we 
do, or if we were to be in a trustful and 
prayerful spirit more than we are, it would be 
better for us and better for all other men with 

[43] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

whom we have any dealings. We need not 
fear to pray. 

III. God is able to answer prayer. It 
cannot be needful to stay much upon this. 
The Being who made all things and in whom 
all things consist, whose intelligence and 
power run together through every mass and 
every atom of the creation, and penetrate 
every order and form of life within it, — this 
Being must be able to show regard to the 
desires of His human children if it seems wise 
to Him to do it. 

But now difficulties begin to arise. It is 
said that the eternity of the being of God and 
the eternal foresight of God must make it 
impossible that changes should ever occur in 
the plans of God, and impossible that prayer 
should have any effect with God. And these 
things may be too high for us. They are too 
high. But if they are too high for us then 
we need not, from our lower lines of thought, 
feel ourselves obliged to endeavor to ascend 
to the realms above us in an effort to solve 
the difficulties which were only brought to 
our sight while we were trying to explore 

[44] 



PRAYER 

the regions that are too high for us. The 
effort to solve these difficulties is no more vain 
than the effort to create them. 

And we do not know, and cannot know, and 
do not believe that the eternal being of God 
is of such a nature as to throw all the free will 
of God back into an undiscoverable and im- 
measurable past. And we do not know, and 
cannot know, and do not believe that the fore- 
knowledge of God is of such a sort as to darken 
or obscure the present intelligence of God. It 
is far otherwise with God. The eternity and 
omniscience of God are a portion of His great- 
ness. He is not fettered by His greatness nor 
blinded by His infinite wisdom. God would 
not be bound, so far as we know, to exercise 
His foresight at every point, if at any point, 
for any cause He should choose not to do it. 

Besides, and this may be more to the pur- 
pose for us — ^we do not find that even among 
men foresight hinders freedom. The man that 
can plan best is most resourceful and free as 
the times draw nigh. And even by this fainter 
light we may judge that the far-shining om- 
niscience of God does not hinder His walking 

[45] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

at liberty in the ways which He Himself may 
choose. 

IV. It may now be observed further that 
the works of God in nature are carried on 
usually, and it may be always, in a systematic 
manner and according to general laws, and 
the relation of prayer to general natural laws 
must be considered. The laws of nature ap- 
pear, often, in the relations of cause and 
effect. Causes are signs of what is about to 
be done. 

It is plainly best for us that God acts in 
nature according to general rules. If He did 
not act in an orderly and regular way no one 
could count on His actions. All planning with 
men would cease if God had no such plans. 
The laws of nature are marks of the wisdom 
and goodness of God. They are not to be 
broken or disregarded by any man who means 
to honor God. 

Practically too, our common lives are to be 
shaped in accordance with what we know of 
the laws of nature. It is not suitable for us 
to disregard them and then pray to God to 
help us in spite of them. We must keep God's 

[46] 



PRAYER 

laws as best we can, and then pray. If a man 
has hay in his field that is fit to be brought 
into his barn, and he sees signs of a coming 
storm, he should not stand in his doorway and 
pray that the storm may be scattered or turned 
aside. He should go out into the field and 
bring his hay into that barn as quickly as he 
can. As to bodily health, a man should not 
be careless as to how he lives and then pray 
to God to keep him well. He should rather 
pray to God to help him to be careful and to 
help him also to keep a cheerful and trustful 
and health-giving mind. 

We are not to expect that God will do 
unreasonable things for us in answer to prayer. 
If we pray rightly we shall try also to be 
reasonable, and to use practical good sense 
in what we do. 

V. Now we must consider what answers 
there might be to our prayers, and what 
answers we may properly desire and expect. 

Answers to prayer may be of several sorts. 
(1) By mental, moral or spiritual results 
within the man himself who prays. (2) By 
such results with some other person for whom 

[4iJ 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

prayer is offered. (3) By results in the course 
of outward nature in the interest of the person 
praying, or (4) by such outward results in 
the interest of some other person or persons 
in behalf of whom prayer was offered. 

The results prayed for in the first two cases 
are mental, moral or spiritual ; in the last two 
these results are in the conditions of outward 
nature. 

These results first-named are by far the most 
important, though we may not always think 
of them as such. Nothing about ourselves can 
concern us so much as the state of our minds, 
our character, our souls. Nothing about our 
friends can be of so much interest to us as 
these same conditions with them. The main 
things with us and with our friends, are the 
states of our minds and hearts toward one 
another, and toward all our fellow men, and 
toward God. 

It is plain too, at once, that God must be 
able to act upon the minds of men in answer 
to prayer if it seems wise to Him to do it. 
There may be hindrances to the effectiveness 
of divine action upon the minds of men in the 

i48J 



PRAYER 

free will which God Himself has given to man. 
Or there may be hindrances in other opposing 
influences, or in adverse conditions which it 
would not be wise for Him to remove or 
change. But that God has access to the minds 
of men we cannot doubt. We can move upon 
one another's minds — sometimes, it may be — 
by what we call telepathy, without visible 
speech or any motion. But God is more near 
than that. He is not far from every one of 
us. The gates of the soul are not shut fast 
against Him. He is Himself "the God of the 
spirits of all flesh." 

It is plain, too, with respect to these results 
of prayer within the minds of men, that there 
is not the same need that they should be an- 
nounced by signs in the visible world that 
there is with respect to results within the out- 
ward world itself. That is to say, there is no 
obvious necessity that the movements of God 
within the human soul should be in accord- 
ance with laws open to general observation; 
while there is such a clear necessity with 
respect to the movements of God in the proc- 
esses of outward nature. If a storm might 

[49] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

come any day suddenly, and without any sort 
of warning, and along with a cool northwest 
wind as well as with a northeast wind or a 
damp wind from the south, or if a stone cast 
out into the air might be as likely to fly up 
as to fall down, or if one might be as likely 
to be sick if he were careful as if he were care- 
less, and if such lawlessness ran through all 
nature, then all nature would be spoiled for 
man. But nothing like this happens when 
moral or spiritual changes take place in the 
soul of man. An intemperate man may be- 
come sober, and the order of the family and 
the neighborhood is not disturbed, but rather 
promoted. If there should be a revival of 
true religion in this community, no disturb- 
ance of any grievous sort would follow here, 
or in any part of the town; but on the con- 
trary, all life would move on more evenly and 
smoothly and happily than before. Changes 
for the better in the souls of men are invisible 
in themselves, and they have no need to be seen 
except in their good results. 

There are no doubt laws governing such 
changes within the souls of men. But they 

[50] 



PRAYER 

are moral laws. The signs of such changes 
might be thoughtf ulness and penitence, confes- 
sion and prayerf ulness ; and following after 
them thankfulness, and joy in the Lord's work 
and in the Lord's church, and more steadfast 
walking in the right ways of life. But it is 
clear that in the order of outward nature there 
need be no natural hindrance to the power of 
God in giving such answers to prayer, offered 
either for one's self or for any other person. 

And now we can see further that very great 
and desirable outward results may easily fol- 
low from such mental or spiritual changes with 
men. So that such answers to prayer as were 
put into the last two of the four classes of 
answers just spoken of, may in many cases 
be brought about by those spiritual touches 
within the mind itself. If there were a man 
intemperate, or idle and shiftless, or sullen 
and violent in temper, and if in answer to 
prayer that man should become temperate, 
industrious and prudent, and kindly, cheerful 
and gracious, that would be quite as great a 
blessing to that man's wife and children as if 
in answer to prayer his crop of potatoes had 

[51] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

been made that year supernaturally large or 
the horse that he had abused and neglected 
had kept supernaturally well. It is so in a 
wide range of matters. And in truth a very 
large part of all the outward things that are 
to be desired depend, more or less completely 
on mental, moral and spiritual influences 
within the minds of men. If the souls of men 
were touched with every grace, the desert of 
the earth would rejoice and blossom as the 
rose. There is range enough for prayer 
through the clear regions of character and 
moral life. 

But we might look farther in this direction. 
Apart from the great matters of character and 
moral life, God might, if it pleased Him to 
do it, make mental suggestions in answer to 
prayer, of things desirable to be done or left 
undone. He might cause the physician or 
nurse to see what had not been seen before, 
of the sick man's trouble, and of the remedy 
for it, or He might put helpful thoughts into 
the sick man's own mind. Or He might give 
watchfulness and coolness to the captain or 
the pilot of the ship, in the perils of the storm. 

[62] 



PRAYER 

Or in the dark hour of battle He might touch 
the mind of the commanding general with 
sagacity and resolution, and fill the hearts of 
his soldiers with courage. It has not been 
seldom in the course of history that invisible 
powers have been thought to be drawing nigh 
to man. So perhaps the shade of Theseus 
passed amid the Grecian ranks at Marathon. 

I have already said, for substance, that the 
course of outward nature is wisely laid out 
under general laws, which we ought to ob- 
serve, and to which our conduct should be 
conformed. I do not know whether these laws 
are ever turned from their course by prayer. 
But since there may be those who are ready 
too lightly to scoff at the possible power of 
prayer in nature, I will add some further 
thoughts bearing upon that possibility, and 
will follow them with some widening moral 
considerations. 

It is in no wise naturally impossible that 
the desires of men should move directly upon 
the great powers of nature — which are the 
powers of God. The powers of God in nature 
are swift and silent. They are invisible as a 

[53] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

thought. They run in quick vibrations from 
orb to orb, through all the matter of the uni- 
verse. They sustain it in all its forms and 
surround it in all its motions. It can scarcely 
be doubted that they take some conscious hold 
on every desire and thought of man. These 
desires and thoughts of men are then in some 
manner felt by the mighty power itself that 
lays hold upon them. It is not to be believed 
that they are felt and made effective as mere 
force or eagerness of desire. That in man 
is strong with God that is in fellowship with 
the sacred purposes that occupy and adorn the 
life of God. It is not hot desire, alone; it 
is a sympathy, rather, with the everlasting 
harmonies that fill the being of Him who sits 
at the center of universal existence. We may 
find, perhaps, some dim analogy in the ways 
in which we are beginning, ourselves, to speak 
through wide spaces in the air above us. It 
is not the mighty noises that are heard. It 
is the finely attuned vibrations, that single 
each other out, and answer like to like across 
the far spaces. So is prayer with God. We 
cannot tell how far it may reach. But we 

[54] 



PRAYER 

may know that the strong effective prayer is 
the prayer of reverence and trust. It is the 
still small voice of lowliness and submission, 
touched with hope. It is the sympathy of the 
heart with the wisdom and fatherhood of the 
great God. 

Such prayer is answered in whatever comes 
to pass. I think that there are cases in which 
the outward thing desired is reached. But 
in the best prayer this outward thing falls a 
little away from sight ; and the sacred fellow- 
ship with God fills the mind. 

It lies within the power of God to bring us 
the outward answer that we desire. It may 
lie within His wisdom to do it, or it may not. 

We need also as we pray to have respect 
to what we may learn concerning the mind 
of God from His own natural laws as they 
appear to apply to the conditions in which we 
are placed. The most devout men as they 
come near to the end of life do not usually 
pray for recovery to health. They pray with 
warm affection for their friends, and with 
lowliness and thankfulness and trust for 
themselves. 

[65] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

The faith with which we should pray is not 
the belief that we can have and must have the 
very thing that we think we need. That would 
be no faith in God; it would be only a blind 
and wilful faith in ourselves. Men sometimes 
pray as if it were the part of God to do what 
they might wish Him to do. This would make 
the Most High God to be only an almighty 
doer of the will of men. He would have need 
to be the doer of the will of every man, as men 
came crowding before Him. He would come 
down thus from His lofty place of wisdom 
and of supremacy — and in that darkening hour 
the divine creation would roll back into chaos. 
But no such disaster will ever befall the crea- 
tion, over which the Almighty God bears rule. 
When we pray, we bring our desires into His 
presence in hope and love and trust, and leave 
them there gratefully with Him. 

It may be that, even as believing men, we 
undervalue in our thoughts the reasonableness 
that is with God. The great Apostle said: 
"Now abideth faith, hope and charity or love, 
but the greatest of these is love." Following 
in that thought it has been notably said in our 

[56] 



PRAYER 

own day that love is the greatest thing in the 
world. Paul was speaking of the principles 
that should control the life of men, and of 
these love is foremost. But in the wide uni- 
verse of God, and with God Himself, it may 
not be altogether the same. Love ahideth eter- 
nally with God Himself, while to our human 
thought faith and hope may pass away. Love 
has its seat forever in the bosom of God. But 
so does Law. So does Wisdom — the great 
discerning, balancing, ordering power of rea- 
son. The Bible says that God is love. It also 
says that God is light. One of the sacred 
writers, in a majestic passage, has represented 
Wisdom as declaring of herself that she was 
in daily companionship with God when the 
worlds were made. To our most reverent 
thoughts, though we behold only from afar 
off, it might appear that Wisdom — the distin- 
guishing and balancing light of reason — must 
hold a central place among the perfections of 
God. In reason was the creation determined 
upon and ordained. In reason were these ma- 
terial worlds established and their circles rmi. 
In reason were laid the boundary lines of the 

[57] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

moral creation. By reason were fixed the bor- 
ders of truth and righteousness — the lines and 
laws that should bind the lives of all the 
rational children of God. By reason the 
warmth of love was chosen and kindled, and 
love itself was set in its place of glory. Our 
human reason is a dim but sublime reflection 
of the reason of God. Around His throne the 
lights of reason shine unshadowed. It is with 
reason that our faith and hope and love rest 
on God, and that we bow down and worship 
before Him. 

It is into the presence of this Being, crowned 
with these golden lights of reason and love, and 
girded with befitting power, that we come 
when we pray. If we can render some honor 
to Him, and can enter a little into His glory 
and His peace, that may well fill our thoughts. 

We may ourselves have often wondered 
what we should pray for if we were to be 
brought, distinctly to our knowledge, into the 
very presence of God, and were assured that 
we should receive exactly that for which we 
might ask. In such an hour should we ask for 
riches — for ourselves — for our children? 

.[58] 



PRAYER 

Should we ask for ease — for freedom from la- 
bors or care? Should we ask for distinction 
and honors? May it not rather be that, at 
such an hour, gathering our thoughts, we 
should say, "Our Father who art in Heaven," 
and should find our first desire to be that His 
name might be hallowed and that His kingdom 
might come and His will might be done in all 
the earth, even as in heaven? And for our- 
selves we should speak, I think, of bread, of 
the daily strength we need for the work of life, 
of the forgiveness of sins, of steadfast kind- 
ness of heart toward our fellowmen, and of 
guidance away from the paths of evil. 

To this end come happily, in reverence and 
trust and love, our thoughts of God and of 
prayer. And if we can seek first these things, 
we may know that such other things as we need 
will be provided for us. 



59] 



IV 

GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 



IV 

GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

Ephesians 5:9. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all 
goodness and righteousness and truth. 

Ephesians 6:10. Finally my brethren, he strong in 
the Lord and in the power of his might. 

Job 32:9. Great men are not always wise. 

In the first of these verses goodness, right- 
eousness and truth are spoken of as fruits, or 
results of a moral sort, produced by the work- 
ing of the Spirit of God upon the hearts and 
lives of Christian believers. The second text 
is an exhortation to be strong in the Lord ; and 
here the stress lies on force and steadfastness 
in goodness. In the third text, from the book 
of Job, we have brought to view the quality of 
vigor or power as existing apart from wisdom, 
and apart thus from goodness. Men may be 
great and not wise. They may be in some 
manner intelligent, resolute and strong, with- 
out having that practical wisdom which would 
enable them to direct rightly their own lives. 
And it is not difficult in fact to find such men. 

[ 63 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

We may take these passages together as 
bringing before us the two qualities of good- 
ness and greatness in men; and of these I 
purpose to speak. I shall make some expla- 
nations respecting them and some remarks 
upon the relation which they bear to each 
other. 

Goodness may be defined as a right dispo- 
sition or purpose controlling the life and enter- 
ing into the character. Goodness is the set- 
tled aim or quality of right living. Goodness 
involves a right state of feeling within our- 
selves, and a right acting in accordance with 
that, and with respect both to God and men. 
These two, right feeling and right acting, go 
together. Feeling moves us to what we do, 
and our doings react upon our feelings and 
quicken and strengthen them. These two 
things are inseparable. No one can be good 
unless he is doing good as he has opportunity. 
The gaining of goodness impels to action and 
requires it. Accordingly, it begins to appear 
from the first, when goodness is thought of as 
full and thorough, and as covering all the 
powers of life, that whosoever should be alto- 

[64] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

gether good would be great, or so far great as 
his capacities and opportunities would allow. 
He would be always endeavoring to do what 
he could in the best manner, and this would 
tend to make him great. 

But greatness must now be looked upon, to 
see what it is. Greatness is power in thinking, 
feeling, and acting. We call a man great who 
can perceive clearly and who can compare or 
think quickly and comprehensively, and who 
can resolve and act with vigor, steadiness and 
effect. The end he has in view, or the moral 
quality of what he does we may let pass to a 
large extent out of mind. Thus renowned 
generals and conquerors are reckoned as great 
men. And men who are successful in carry- 
ing out their purposes in politics or govern- 
ment, or in business, are thought of as great, 
without much respect to what may be the na- 
ture or quality of the purposes they follow. 
In all these cases there is a greatness of intel- 
lect or of will, or of both combined, the heart 
and conscience being set aside. 

It need not be denied that such greatness 
is real, so far as it goes. There may be with 

[65] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

a man wonderful clearness of discernment in 
some things or wonderful energy of accom- 
plishment, or both together, while he has 
neither love nor care for his fellow-creatures, 
nor for God. Such a man may be selfish and 
unscrupulous, yet sharp and clear and strong. 
He is likely to be in some repute too, for his 
sharpness and strength. There is a natural 
tendency in us to render a certain homage to 
clearness and vigor of mind, and to brilliancy 
and success in action, without thinking much 
of the moral quality of what is purposed and 
done. And there may be in fact a real great- 
ness of a certain kind, separate from good- 
ness, and found even in bad men. 

Yet greatness is not genuine and complete 
if it does not take account of what is good. 
A man of a strong, clear and well-balanced 
mind, should have discernment of the duties 
he owes to God and to man, and should see 
how important it is that they should be dis- 
charged. He should thus have thought upon 
things moral and religious, and he is not a 
thoroughly strong and well-balanced man if 
he does not. And if he does not follow these 

[66] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

thoughts into right feeling and action, he will 
be dwarfed and shortened and made small 
upon all that side of his life. Real clearness 
and force of mind join on thus with goodness. 
As before, when we were getting the defini- 
tions or boundaries of goodness, we saw how 
it ought to lead to greatness, so now when we 
are looking at the boundaries of greatness, we 
see how it ought to lead to goodness. The 
two qualities are plainly not far apart, and 
goodness appears to be indispensable to gen- 
uine and full force of life. 

But passing on further in the way of defi- 
nitions and explanations, we may see that 
there is a large class of qualities, entering very 
prominently into the formation of a strong 
character, that are situated in some manner 
between goodness and greatness, in the usual 
sense of those words, that yet lie heavily over 
on the side of goodness. Self-control is one 
of these qualities, a power of reserve and pa- 
tience and self-possession. This enters in a 
most remarkable manner into the highest order 
of executive capacity and achievement. In 
the critical periods of history, and in the great 

[67] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

prosperous struggles for human liberty, lead- 
ership has commonly fallen to those calm, bal- 
anced men, unlike to what may be sometimes 
lightly thought. 

Alfred of England was such a man, toiling 
and warring and waiting for the enlightenment 
and the safety of his country, before the dawn- 
ing almost of her splendid day had begun to 
shine. Hampden was such a man, cut off 
before it could be surely known to what scope 
in vast emergencies his great powers might 
reach. William the Silent was such a man. 
It was by such a temper that he was fitted 
to be the leader of his people through the long 
opening years of the dreadful contest for the 
independence of his country, and for the lib- 
erties of Europe. He stood in this patience 
of heart, in this central steadfastness of soul, 
while the ceaseless storms beat upon him. 
The destinies of nations turned there upon 
that firmness and solidness of personal char- 
acter, as upon a pivot of steel or of diamond. 

There were kindred traits of character in 
that man of our own nation whom we call 
the Father of his country; and it was by 

[68] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

reason of them, in large part, that he gained 
the name he bears. I am not sure that Alfred 
the Great or William the Silent or Washing- 
ton were men of the very highest order of 
purely intellectual greatness. But they were 
of the very great men. As to services ren- 
dered in the handling of secular affairs, and 
in a governmental or public line, I suppose 
it might be maintained that these three are 
the three most illustrious names among men. 
It was by reason of the powers largely moral 
within them that they rose to this distinction. 
General Grant was a man in some respects 
of the same type, — silent, self-contained, self- 
poised, patient, steadfast, and irresistible in 
his patience and steadfastness. So always, 
these self-governing powers wherever they are 
found, though lying largely on the side of 
goodness, make for greatness. 

The disposition or power of self-sacrifice is 
another of these qualities, which lie in some 
manner between goodness and greatness, but 
yet belong mostly along with goodness. Bad 
men may be occasionally and in some things 
self-sacrificing, but at the bottom of their 

[69] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

hearts they are selfish. The self-sacrificing 
spirit is the essential element in all heroism, 
that is, in all greatness of that highest and 
most animating kind. Where this is lacking 
in a man, otherwise clever-minded and strong, 
it puts at once a certain mark of meanness and 
belittlement upon him. If we discover plainly 
concerning any man, that he has a selfish 
motive in all or the most of what he does, we 
instinctively set him down as a man of a 
low, poor, and narrow mind, whatever other 
strength he may have. We call him a "small" 
man. On the other side, lives which are in 
many respects not strong, and which have 
seemed inconspicuous, are lifted up in our 
thoughts, if this strain of self-forgetfulness 
is seen within them. 

It is important too, to remember, that this 
element of greatness of which we are speak- 
ing, is not of necessity, nor commonly, a thing 
of flashing suddenness, that appears only on 
rare occasions. In the best lives the power of 
self-sacrifice passes into the habit of a just 
balancing between one's own distinctly per- 
sonal interests and the welfare of one's friends 

[70] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

and neighbors, and the general good of the 
whole public, and of mankind. That which 
is but narrowly personal takes its place of 
subordination or of helpfulness toward these 
wider interests. This is not then a matter of 
sudden exigencies, but of daily life. Our fel- 
low men may not fall continually at our side 
into the water or into the fire, that we should 
rescue them at risk to oiu*selves, and great 
public dangers may not arise each year, as 
from treason or foreign violence, that we 
should stand up in the sight of all men and 
beat them off. But our fellow men are always 
with us, and the land and the world are open 
before us, and we may contribute whatever we 
can, and with whatever labor or cost we please, 
toward the general welfare. 

Many persons who might endure to be 
heroic upon a sudden or single occasion, are 
not able to do this work of a steady and un- 
selfish common life. This is the best trial of 
a true spirit. The uncomplaining, steadfastly 
gracious mother in her home, the constantly 
faithful and patient teacher, weekdays or Sun- 
days, in her room or class, may be greater than 

[ 71 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

the men who take cities. It is more to rule 
one's spirit than to take a city. This is a path 
to greatness that is open to you all. 

We might observe too, concerning Wash- 
ington, and William the Silent and Alfred, 
that they were heroic, not chiefly in the way 
of single and startling acts of self-devotion, 
but in this other and better way of a clear and 
considerate acceptance of their own due place 
and work of life. Thus, although their oppor- 
tunities and their responsibilities were most 
unusual, yet their moral greatness was of that 
kind which ought to appear and might appear 
in all common life. It was an enlarged com- 
mon greatness, if we may so describe it. Most 
of the best greatness that the world has ever 
known has been of the same sort, with respect 
to the moral qualities that have marked and 
made it. The courses of action by which in 
critical times the welfare of mankind has been 
signally advanced will surely appear, when 
they are considered in their moral relations, 
to be no more than the discharging under such 
circumstances, of the common obligations of 
life. Sometimes we wonder that such things 

[72] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

should seem uncommon or great. But all duti- 
fulness and self-devotion are great, and when 
the powers and principles that are or ought 
to be common, are seen to hold steadfastly in 
their place under hard pressure of outward 
occasions, then they can be seen to be, what 
they always are, high and great. I presume 
you may sometimes have wondered with re- 
spect to Washington, why he should be 
regarded as so uncommonly great. He seems 
only to have done on any particular occasion, 
exactly that which any sensible person ought 
to have done. But if any one of you will do 
on every particular occasion that which any 
sensible person ought to do, you will become 
uncommonly great, — though your greatness 
may not be seen at once afar off, like that 
of Washington. 

The defects or failure of great men, or men 
in many respects great, may also show us the 
place and worth of these powers or habits of 
considerate self-devotion. There is a lasting 
luster upon the name of Cromwell; but it 
would have been a purer luster, if there had 
not seemed to be wanting in him somewhat 

[73] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

of that clear and balanced disinterestedness 
which ran central through the characters of 
William the Silent and of Washington. Na- 
poleon failed in life greatly, because such 
moral qualities were lacking in his nature. 

Now we must see that these midway qual- 
ities, as I have called them, run everywhere 
close to goodness, and that they are, compre- 
hensively, little else than the signs or the traits 
of goodness. We see, too, that these same 
qualities make up a large part really of great- 
ness. Greatness does not mean merely power 
to move directly upon others, as by force of 
will or pure intelligence. It means power, 
first to control one's self, to possess one's own 
spirit, and to hold one's self in due place in 
all that one does with respect to the rights 
and the wishes and the welfare of all other 
men. And the control or influence which one 
man may have over another, which is a meas- 
ure or mark of greatness, depends fully as 
much upon the possession with that man of 
these self-governing and self-devoting powers, 
as upon force of will or of intelligence. 

Next to Washington among our Presidents, 

[74] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

— and on the same level perhaps with him — 
Abraham Lincoln holds the strongest influ- 
ence upon our people. This is not because 
he was stronger intellectually than all the 
rest, whatever the fact may have been in that 
respect. It is because he was thought to have 
devoted himself with some peculiar heartiness 
and singleness of purpose to the service of his 
country during the dark and laborious years 
of his office. Then he was kindly and sympa- 
thetic ; he could weigh the wishes of other men, 
and he could restrain his own. He was elastic 
in temper, yielding and steadfast both at once, 
— altogether patient and persuasive — till the 
hours of action came. There seemed, also, we 
may hardly know how, to be spread a certain 
pathos of a moral sort, over the last years of 
his life, even before they came to their sudden 
end. It was by such things, and not by bare 
greatness, that his power grew. 

It is further to be considered with regard 
to those qualities of which we have spoken, 
that not only do they belong in themselves 
more closely with goodness than with great- 
ness, in the narrow sense of that word, but that 

L75J 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

goodness has besides a power or tendency to 
produce them or to quicken their growth. 
They inchne to go with goodness, and good- 
ness itself inchnes to the forming and nurture 
of them. 

He who has or desires goodness must set 
himself to the governing of his own spirit, and 
the possessing of his own soul, and to the turn- 
ing of his efforts and the ordering of his life 
out of the channels of a narrow selfishness 
into the courses of duty and beneficence. Thus 
goodness will lead toward all that greatness 
which these high qualities of mind may bring, 
while greatness, in the narrower and poorer 
sense, may not cause them to be brought forth 
or sought for. 

Then as to general strength of mind, we saw 
at the first that any one who is or means to 
be good must be bringing into use all his fac- 
ulties of every sort in obedience to God, and 
in service to his fellow-men ; and this will tend 
to make him strong. In other words, a good 
man is likely, indeed certain, on account of his 
goodness, to gain something in mental bright- 
ness and in capacity for accomplishment. I 

[76] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

know very well that this may not always ap- 
pear to be so. There is a habit of speaking 
of persons of a certain type of character as 
"good," with a peculiar turn or inflection on 
the word good, the meaning of which is, that 
while these persons may be blameless and 
harmless in their lives, yet they are of a weak 
style of manhood, and do not amount to much. 
No doubt there is such a type of character. 
There are also wide differences of natural 
endowment among men. Some men are set 
out to be stronger than others; and some are 
weaker. So there may be a comparatively 
weak man, who may begin to gain goodness 
and grace in his heart, and who may not at 
once or soon grow to be energetic and strong. 
Yet it is true that with every person, right- 
ness of feeling and of purpose tends to action, 
and thus to growth and enlargement of ca- 
pacity. These results will become plain in 
time. 

If you find two persons who are equals in 
capacity at the start, and with equal oppor- 
tunities, and if one of them has been dutiful, 
and the other careless of duty, you will see that 

[77] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

the dutiful man has gained upon the other 
somewhat in mental brightness and capacity, 
as well as in soundness of character. It can- 
not be otherwise; and it is not otherwise. A 
right aim in life tends to thoughtfulness, and 
to the use and growth of power. It builds 
up manhood, or helps to do it. It puts breadth 
and elevation on life; and in the end it puts 
on strength. 

Besides you must remember that elevation 
of character is of itself a great achieving 
power among men. I do not know but it is 
the greatest of all human powers playing on 
the earth. The more carefully you look over 
human life, the more you will see of the worth 
and force of moral soundness and genuine 
goodness of character. And the more you 
look, the stronger will be the sense you will 
have of the weight among men of these great 
qualities, as compared with all other forms of 
greatness. 

Those of you who may have traced from 
early times the social history of the place 
where you live, or of almost any New Eng- 
land town, can hardly have failed to observe 

[78j 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

what a mark has been made upon these com- 
mmiities by men of strong individuality and 
of fixed integrity of purpose and of character. 
To a large degree, upright men, fearing God, 
have fashioned our society. The influence of 
womanly life has been strongly felt on these 
lines of goodness. There have been many 
whose gentleness and charity and moral stead- 
fastness have made them great, and whose 
remembrance is precious. 

While we are measuring in such ways the 
results of life, and weighing the force of men, 
it must be considered that much of what may 
pass at first for greatness is unreal and false, 
even by the standards of capacity alone. For 
instance, a man may often gain some end in 
life, not by greater vigor or skill in pursuing 
it, but by casting off the restraints which other 
men feel while in the pursuit of it. He is not 
stronger than others, he is only more reckless. 
He is not greater, he is only worse. He will 
reach his ends by means which others would 
not stoop to use. A man may get rich, per- 
haps, by sharp dealings, more quickly than his 
neighbors. But if he does, it is not because 

[79] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

he is more capable than his neighbors; it is 
merely because he is less honest and less just. 
So as to politics and government, some one 
may gain high position perhaps, not by ca- 
pacity altogether, but in part by intrigue and 
corruption, or by easy surrender of all con- 
victions at the promise of promotion. The 
advancement thus gained is not altogether 
because the man is very able, but is in part 
because he is very crafty and perhaps very 
false. Temporary and apparent successes in 
life may often be gained more easily by one 
who has no concern for the means he uses. 
This is not strength that gains such successes ; 
it is merely recklessness and dishonor. It is 
carelessness of honorable obligations that other 
men feel, and that these men ought to feel. 
These men are not so far smart men, they are 
merely bad men. 

In much the same way a man may reach the 
ends he sets out for, by pushing with all his 
might for them, and neglecting other things 
which it was his duty to have cared for. This 
case is not quite like the other. The man may 
not have been directly unscrupulous and reck- 

[80] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

less in what he did, but he was reckless in what 
he did not do, and in leaving that undone. 
He gave nothing, or but little, in charity. He 
paid the smallest possible tax he could, — a 
payment that ought to be made with care 
indeed, but chiefly with thankfulness. — He 
bore no share in the general public burdens, 
or he bore the least he could. He left alone, 
all he could, the general labors that fall in 
every community upon some one. He left 
beneficence and public spirit to others. And 
thus, concentrating all his strength, selfishly 
and wrongfully, upon his own chosen purpose, 
he has been able to reach it, or get nearer to 
it, while other men who have not felt at liberty 
to neglect all these other things have not been 
able to push on so far in that one line. This 
does not show the forward man to be stronger 
than the rest; it only shows that he has put 
his strength narrowly on one thing, as they 
have not, and as he ought not to have done. 
So there might be a company of men set to 
carry each a certain load to a distant point, 
and one of the men might throw off the most 
of his load, and run forward and get to that 

[81] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

point first. But he has not taken his load 
there. Or a horse might break loose from his 
wagon, and run more swiftly to the end of 
his road. He gets there, but he has not drawn 
his load there. Those things are not signs of 
strength and accomplishing force in horse or 
man. They are signs with a man of a mean 
disposition to throw off his proper work, and 
get on in some way without doing it. 

Much of what passes for success in life is 
of this poor sort. We have a phrase often 
applied with some approval to the man who 
makes this style of headway, of whom it is said 
that "he gets there." Perhaps he does get 
there. Perhaps he sneaks there. Perhaps he 
slips on there quick, as a snake through the 
grass. Perhaps though he has got there, he 
is no man after he is there. Look and see what 
a man has done. Consider the width of the 
swath he has cut, as well as the distance on one 
narrow line along which he has rim. Measure 
his work by breadth all ways, and not by length 
one way only. See what the man has brought 
to pass. Count the wise and kindly words he 
has spoken. Mark the patience and courage 

[82] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

he has shown. Weigh the whole force of his 
life for the general welfare and for the honor 
of his God, and judge by this whether or not 
he is great. 

This quality of discerning judgment is to 
prevail. Through considerations like these 
great changes often take place, with the pass- 
ing of years, in the estimates that are formed 
of men with respect to power and accomplish- 
ment in life. Time, even in this world, and 
while men live, or after they are dead, revises 
and reverses often the judgments that were 
passed at first upon them. Time exposes much 
that was but specious and shallow, that went 
for greatness, and it brings to light elsewhere 
much of real greatness that at first was but 
little thought of. Still greater changes of this 
sort will take place, we are assured, in the 
world to come, and when all action and char- 
acter are reviewed before God. He will then 
appoint for all men, with exactness and cer- 
tainty, the repute in which they are forever 
to be held. This is the glory and crown of 
that future life, that its rewards and honors 
rest with evenness and exactness, and with un- 

[83] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

erring, unchangeable and unanswerable stead- 
fastness upon those that deserve to wear them, 
and upon none besides. 

All such considerations urge you to set out 
in the way of holiness and the fear of the Lord, 
which is the way of safety, and of final honor. 
The path is open before you all. You may 
not all be great in outward view, or as com- 
pared with others, which are things of small 
account. But you are all permitted and re- 
quired to aim at, and reach, some worthy end 
in life. You can set out to love and serve God 
and your fellowmen. You can cast out of 
your heart all low and evil things. You can 
put into it as much as you please of that which 
is pure and high, and of good report. You 
can be patient and kind, faithful and steadfast 
in courage and hope, at home or at school, 
upon your farm or in your shop or store, — 
and you will be great. In this way of obedi- 
ence and of love the Lord Himself will help 
you. He will give you grace and strength. 
You will grow strong both by what you 
try to do yourself, and by the favor and 
blessing of the Most High shining on you, — 

[84] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

you will grow in goodness, and you will be 
great. 

I have spoken of examples. There is an- 
other Example. We have knowledge of One 
in whom goodness and greatness were so woven 
together that we scarcely ever speak of Him 
or think of Him as good alone or great. We 
think of Him as in all things full and perfect. 
We know of nothing more strong than His 
gentleness and grace. We know of nothing 
more lovely than His majesty and power. 
By both together He has turned the destinies 
of mankind, and is swaying the generations 
of men as no other man ever did. He rules 
today in heaven and on earth ; and in the ful- 
ness of His grace and power He calls on us 
to follow Him and to be like Him. Behold 
the Way, behold the Leader, behold the hope 
of life in following Him. 

It is specially important that you who are 
young should look rightly on these things. 
Young people are apt to be hopeful. Besides 
that, they usually hold, I think, a certain 
elevation of desire and aim and expectation. 
They hope for high things. This peculiarity 

[85] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

appears often in the papers read and the ad- 
dresses made at the closing exercises of our 
schools. Any one who is much with young 
persons anywhere must see it. Young people 
are often heedless and irresolute, but they look 
naturally toward high things. There are 
many who speak of this upward-looking vision 
of youth, as if it belonged only with the inex- 
perience and rawness of that opening period 
of life. They call it a thing of prospect only, 
and of poetry, a sparkling of the early dew, 
or a painting on the morning sky, which the 
fiercer beams of the midday sun must certainly 
burn or scatter. 

I hope you will not believe it to be so. It 
may too often be true. But it is true too 
often, because these highest and most hopeful 
thoughts are forgotten, and turned from, and 
not because they are of necessity vain and 
illusory. If you will turn the course of your 
lives into ways of frivolity only, or into hard 
and eager and selfish grasping after pleasures 
or possessions or honors, unmindful of duty 
and of God, then indeed this early freshness 
will perish, as waters dry up that flow into a 

[86] 



GOODNESS AND GREATNESS 

desert. But the Author of your lives never 
meant that they should run into the desert, 
and you must not suffer it to be so. He means 
that you should be useful, that you should do 
and gain good, and that you should grow in 
goodness and truth, and in all that is shining 
and fair in human character. And you can 
do it. The troubles of life which you cannot 
escape, need not hinder you. By these and 
by a divine favor given with them, you may 
gain sometimes the most of good. Hold there- 
fore upon the promise of the morning — this 
hope of early life. It is meant for a sign from 
God of some genuine good to which you may 
come, and which you should never leave off 
pursuing. Your best hopes need not fail. 
You must see to it that they do not fail. 

No color of poetry will vanish from any- 
thing of real goodness and grace, as you follow 
after it, and come close upon it. Good things 
are better in the hand or the heart than they 
are afar off. T)o not hear therefore those 
who tell you that life must be, for the most 
part, but hard, dry, and barren. Do not hear 
that within yourself which may sometimes tell 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

you so. Hear rather the promise of the 
Leader Himself of the holy, the faithful and 
the great : — Truly you shall be clothed in white 
raiment. Your name shall be in the Book of 
Life. You shall eat of the tree of life. You 
shall wear the crown of life. Your life will 
reach its crown. You shall be a pillar in the 
temple of God. There shall be given unto 
you the morning star. You shall overcome, 
and shall sit down on the throne of the Re- 
deemer and King of men, as He also overcame, 
and is set down upon the throne of God. 

These things can be reached from the earth. 
The lives that reach them and none besides, are 
worthy and great. I trust you will attain to 
these lofty things. I hope you will set forth 
today in Christian faith and hope and love to 
lay hold upon them. 



[88] 



THE BLESSINGS OF RATIONAL 
EXISTENCE 



THE BLESSINGS OF RATIONAL 
EXISTENCE 

Genesis 1 : 2 J/., 26 and 27, and Genesis 2 : 7. 

And God said. Let the earth bring forth the living 
creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and 
beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And 
God said. Let us make man in our image, after our like- 
ness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the 
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, 
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing 
that creepeth on the earth. So God created man in his 
own image, in the image of God created he him, male 
and female created he them. And the Lord God formed 
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living 
soul. 

In a great commeinorative address of Dan- 
iel Webster, delivered at Plymouth in 1820, 
the speaker as he was about to close brought 
before his hearers in imagination the men of 
future times, anticipating their grateful en- 
trance upon that theater of human life which 
the fathers here had in part prepared, and 
had transmitted to them; and he called for- 

[91] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

ward to these advancing generations of the 
future in words of salutation, enumerating 
also before them the blessings of the earthly 
and human inheritance which they in their 
turn were to possess. He made mention of 
"this pleasant land of the fathers," of its 
"healthful skies," and "verdant fields." He 
welcomed them to the blessings of good gov- 
ernment and religious liberty, "to the treasures 
of science and the delights of learning, — to the 
transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the 
happiness of kindred and parents and chil- 
dren," and finally, "to the immeasurable bless- 
ings of rational existence, and the immortal 
hope of Christianity, and the light of ever- 
lasting truth." 

Apart from whatever may belong distinc- 
tively to this particular portion of our coun- 
try, or to ourselves as descended from any 
characteristic line of ancestors, there is a ful- 
ness upon which our thoughts must fasten, 
in this heritage of life itself, thus described, 
and upon which we in our succession have 
entered. Many of the specifications set forth 
by the orator in this inventory of life, are of 

[92] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

matters to which our thoughts are often di- 
rected in our pubhc assemblies, and elsewhere, 
in our schools and households, and in the daily 
associations in which we are occupied. Two 
of the last three that are mentioned, "the 
immortal hope of Christianity and the light 
of everlasting truth," are the great and spa- 
cious themes that engage our attention in all 
our Sabbath observances. The other of the 
three, "the immeasurable blessings of rational 
existence," is a topic becoming to any sacred 
occasion, and well fitted in its nature to lead 
us to the most lofty thoughts and the finest 
emotions. 

The passages which have been taken as the 
text, contain an account from the earliest 
pages of Scripture of the creation and endow- 
ment of man in rational existence. Man was 
made, by the purpose and act of God, in the 
image and after the likeness of God, his 
Maker. This image or likeness of God has 
respect to the great elements of personal and 
rational being. It includes whatever is pecul- 
iar to man in distinction from the other animal 
tribes created to occupy the earth. 

[93] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

We may look over this ground somewhat 
today, to see what is thus embraced in rational 
existence, and to learn what occasions it affords 
of thankfulness and reverence and serious 
hope. I ask your most thoughtful attention, 
— not for the weight of what I may say, but 
for the absorbing greatness of the theme itself, 
which I may bring but dimly before you. 

Rational existence includes existence itself, 
and rises out of that. There is with man the 
fact or subsistence of being, beneath and be- 
sides its rational quality. We have an exist- 
ence — rational. 

If we consider this human existence beneath 
what belongs to its rational or personal parts, 
in its foundations, we shall see that there are 
successive layers of being, as they may be 
called, one beneath another, upon which our 
lives are resting, or of which indeed, our lives 
may be said to be composed or made up. 
Below what is rational we find, first the ani- 
mal life, with its free and voluntary powers; 
next the natural organic hfe, pertaining both 
to animals and plants and reaching down to 
the boundary line between things living and 

[94] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

things that have no life. Then beneath all 
these we find the great structure or platform 
of material existence, including the matter, 
whatever it may be, of things living or dead. 
And of matter, account is to be taken of the 
energies within it, or acting upon it, by which 
it is moved, or held in place in bulk and form. 
Beneath these is the region of the forces, most 
subtle, that act among the invisible and almost 
unknown particles of matter, and determine 
the kiud of substance it may seem to be, as 
hard, soft, brittle, elastic, transparent, solid, 
fluid, or other, and of many varieties and qual- 
ities. And beneath material existence, with all 
its forms and forces or capacities, and with all 
the life it sustains within it or above it, there 
is the foundation of created existence itself, by 
the reason or force of which all things are that 
otherwise would not be. Thus we reach, be- 
neath the whole structure of existence, the 
purposing and ordaining power of God, un- 
seen of us and unsearchable in its nature and 
subsistence, but penetrating and upholding 
all things. 

Concerning the being of God, beneath all 

[95] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

other being, we are driven in our contempla- 
tions to think, and it is also declared in the 
Scriptures, that it must be a being having its 
foundations and resources within itself and 
self-sustained, and not like our being, resting 
on something besides itself. But of all this 
we know, in the sense of comprehending it, but 
little. And when we try to think of the reason 
why anything should be, rather than should 
not be, or why there should be anything, or 
on what it turns or rests that anything should 
be, or what would have been had nothing been, 
— ^we are confused and baffled, if not affrighted 
— we cannot stand with a steady mind upon 
this brink of being — the edge of extinction 
and universal nothingness. But there is being, 
however it came to be, or is; and we are of 
it. We are, ourselves, in the fact and sub- 
stance of our existence, and with all our 
capacities of every sort. 

This structure of our being may be com- 
pared to a building with its foundations cov- 
ered from sight, and raised up through suc- 
cessive stories to the apartments of voluntary 
life and rational thought and affection. Be- 

[96] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

ginning at the lowest stories, we have thus, 
existence, — being, in a world of being; next, 
matter, with the powers or qualities of its 
atoms, by which they associate themselves to- 
gether, and with the powers by which they 
move in masses, or in bulk together; next, 
rising higher, the strange powers of life, stir- 
ring in the smallest cells of plants or of our 
own bodily frames; next, the capacities of 
bodily movement and control, with sensible 
perceptions and judgments concerning it — 
the dawning of mental life — as with all the 
animal tribes, — and then the full opening of 
self-consciousness, with discernments of truths 
and causes, principles and ends, and with an- 
swering powers of choice and self -direction, — 
the lights of reason illuminating and guiding 
life ; all these together constituting man in his 
rational existence. 

The building is spacious, vast and high, as 
these first thoughts of it may show. These 
first reflections upon ourselves as existing, may 
awaken the sentiments of awe and dependence, 
and also it must seem, of reverence and 
gratitude. 

[97] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

To look a little further on these fundamental 
things concerning human existence, we may 
see that the distinction between ourselves as 
rational beings and the whole mass of existence 
about us, does not lie exactly in the fact that 
we have powers of thought and of will, for 
these are found everywhere in all matter of 
life about us. Forces — laws, powers of intel- 
ligence and choice run through every particle 
of matter in all the world. It might be more 
easy to see that everything in all the world 
consists of those intelligences and powers than 
to conceive that anything could be without 
them. All things do indeed live and move and 
have their being in power and knowledge. 
There is thought, there is consistent and en- 
lightened purpose in the growth of a leaf, or 
in its fall to the ground, or in the cohesion 
and substance of a stone, as truly as in the 
speech and motion of a man. A cornfield is 
thus far as truly a rational assembly as a 
congregation of men. The difference is not 
in that there is reason in exercise in the one 
assembly and not in the other. But the dif- 
ference, so far as we may know it, lies in this, 

[98] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

that in the cornfield the power and wisdom 
everywhere at work do not connect themselves 
in such a way with the individual plants of 
corn as to make those plants aware in them- 
selves of what is taking place about them and 
within them, or in such a way as to give to 
the corn plant freedom or choice of action for 
itself. The living plant is constituted in some 
ways a center of force and direction — unhke 
the dead mass of the soil it grows from — but 
it is not constituted, so far as we know, an 
individual seat of self-consciousness and reflec- 
tion. Power and intelligence are in the corn- 
plant; but the plant does not, so far as we 
know, intelligently possess the powers that 
are within itself. Man does in part, intelli- 
gently possess his own capacities. This is 
his distinction. 

Elsewhere in nature, as far as we know, the 
powers and intelligences of nature are not 
consciously felt and weighed and reflected 
upon by the objects over which and through 
which they have sway; but in man to some 
extent they are. And man stands forth in 
nature a hving and conscious being, able to 

[99] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

overlook and estimate somewhat, and able 
somewhat to control the power and life that 
are about him and within him. There has 
been appointed to him this peculiar store of 
knowledge and will. Man is a being real- 
izing life. He is a being self -intelligent in 
part, free and reasonable and personal. These 
qualities as to man's rational being are gath- 
ered in the word person; and among the nat- 
ural inhabitants of the globe, man is the only 
person. 

But we have already seen that the whole 
natural world around us, and that part of 
nature that is within us, is full of thought and 
purpose and power, by which indeed it is 
everywhere penetrated, upheld, informed, and 
made to live and move and be. Reason de- 
clares to us dimly, though hardly doubtfuUj^, 
that this natural and universal intelligence and 
power has also somewhere its seat of personal 
being, its abode of self -consciousness and judg- 
ment and freedom in choice and will. Reve- 
lation also declares it. The Bible opens its 
record with the announcement of this Personal 
Being, purposing, creating, fashioning and 

[100] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

upholding all things. In the beginning God 
created; and this was the generation of the 
heavens and the earth and all that they contain. 

Thus we find our way in our thoughts to 
God, a rational personal being, in the likeness 
of ourselves, but with majestic and immeas- 
urable enlargement and force of being beyond 
ourselves. And thus more decisively, directly, 
and appropriately, the Bible declares that God 
made man in His own image, in the likeness 
of God. 

It is by these free and rational powers that 
we are in the image of God. We can survey 
in some degree ourselves and the things about 
us. We can judge in reason concerning prin- 
ciples and ends of action, and can weigh in 
freedom the motives and purposes of life. So 
we do in our own lives the same manner of 
things that were done by God Himself when 
in power and wisdom and fulness of purpose 
He created the worlds and created man. 

These free and rational powers are also 
spiritual. God is a spirit, and the Father of 
our spirits; and as spiritual beings we are in 
His image and likeness. 

[101] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

I have thus drawn the general definitions of 
our human rational existence. Even in such 
outlines it must seem to us a thing great and 
high and precious, and indeed of immeasurable 
blessing. Now let us look rapidly at some 
particulars of capacity and action which be- 
long to us as possessing a rational existence. 

As rational beings we are in a peculiar man- 
ner possessors of all powers of nature and life 
that are beneath this level of what is rational. 
All nature and life are more to us because we 
have a rational natm^e. We can look down 
on all this expression of power and wisdom 
and being beneath us, and enjoy the sight; 
this is itself an immeasurable blessing. The 
corn plant lives; but we do not know that it 
has any distinct sense of satisfaction in its life. 
There is infinite skill in its structure and modes 
of growth and nourishment, but the corn plant 
never reflects gratefully or intelligently upon 
the fact. The ox and horse have larger capac- 
ities. They know their owner's crib and pas- 
ture, and their owner himself. They have 
powers of motion and of memory, and a range 
of discretion. But the most wise of oxen 

[102] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

never, we may believe, surveyed consciously 
his own being — as we now survey ours — or 
undertook to fix his place in nature, or reflect 
even on the growth of the grass or corn he 
ate. The owl does not shake the wisdom of 
his head and say: "This is a wonderful world. 
I must look out the deep things in it." The 
century living crow does not, that we know 
of, speak reflectingly to his fellows or to him- 
self to say: "The storms pass quickly; we 
have no such snows now as in the years when 
I began to fly." 

The animals have indeed in some directions 
sharp powers of mind; and we need not be 
careful at all now to draw any clear lines 
between their capacities and ours. But the 
space in range and scope between them and 
us is vast. They have, happily, many sources 
of enjoyment, but ours are fuller beyond com- 
parison. The difference in this single respect 
is great, in the prospect we have over our lives 
and over all about us and beneath us. We 
have this lofty power of conscious discernment 
and appreciation, by which we make some 
pleasing use or appropriation of all the things 

[ 103] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

that we behold. This pleasing and appropri- 
ating use of nature and of all surrounding life 
takes place often almost unconsciously. I be- 
lieve it occurs even with the most unthinking 
men, and is a source of satisfaction to them far 
beyond what they may ever have imagined. 
As rational beings we own our place in nature, 
and in all the world, with all that it contains ; 
and the possession is of inestimable value. 

The rational power of considering ourselves 
is a great blessing in our lives. This distinc- 
tive rational capacity has been much dwelt 
upon already, and it is only spoken of here 
to bring to mind the satisfaction its exercise 
gives. Who of us, even if we may not have 
thought much concerning it, would lightly lose 
the sense we have of ourselves as persons, 
human and rational? Who that has thought 
of it much would lose it for all besides that 
the world contains? 

We have as rational beings many special 
capacities and exercises, which are, separately 
and together, of the highest worth. Some of 
these are found in part with the animal tribes 
beneath us; but in the main and in all their 

[104] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

widest range, they are distinctly human. We 
have sensations of many kinds, bringing per- 
ceptions of the things about us. We can give 
attention to them. We have capacities for 
continual and intelligent observation. We can 
make comparisons and reflections, and frame 
judgments upon what we observe or experi- 
ence. We have remembrance, so that past 
experiences are not lost but carried onward 
with us ; we have thus teachableness, capacity 
of progress and gain out of all present and 
past things. We have foresight — ^powers of 
expectation and calculation, powers of hope 
laying hold on all things possible and pleas- 
ing, — so that we enjoy and in a manner possess 
the future, along with the present and the past. 
We have knowledge of relations, of causes 
and principles. We are able to set in order 
proofs or arguments concerning what we know 
or expect. We can provide and direct con- 
cerning much that it is desirable to make to 
occur, or to hinder in its occurrence. We have 
authorities over the irrational inhabitants of 
the earth, and over the forces of nature, so 
that we are able to occupy and subdue the 

[105] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

globe and all that is on it. We can discern 
ends of effort and action, and pronounce upon 
their character, and choose the means appro- 
priate for reaching them. We have imagina- 
tion; we can set in new frames and lights, 
and in new combinations the pictures of every- 
thing that we have ever known or thought of ; 
and the chambers of the mind may hang with 
figures, countless as the sands, fixed or shift- 
ing as the stars or the northern lights, and 
beautiful, enchanting, restful, or stirring 
and glorious, beyond all the reality of life, 
and above the scenes of the earth or the visible 
heavens. We have emotions, sympathetic 
awakenings of feeling along with perceptions 
and memories, reflections, hopes, purposes and 
imaginations of every sort, so that our minds 
are not forever dull as waters in a perpetual 
calm, but are lifted and stirred as a sea in the 
storms, or by the swelling of its tides. We 
have rational affections, appreciative and pleas- 
ing attachments to the very objects of nature 
about us, but especially to the persons like 
ourselves whose lives are cast along with ours. 
And hence, and to the end also that these 

[106] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

grateful sentiments may find more certain and 
continual exercise, we have rational compan- 
ionships, opportunities of chosen and cherished 
and quickening intercourse with associates and 
friends, making rational life not solitary but 
social, multiplied in all its good, that we may 
walk in the reflected light of all the blessings 
that fall on those around us. We have moral 
sensibilities, discernments and appreciations of 
truths about duty and affecting character, with 
the pure, immeasurable and unchangeable sat- 
isfactions of obedience and love and right- 
eousness. We have powers of faith, making 
discoveries beyond the senses or the full sight 
of the understanding, but revealing the sub- 
stance and assurance of the things most to be 
hoped for. We have in this way foresights 
respecting a life beyond the present, above the 
range of nature, immortal and holy. We have 
lofty and impelling instincts of preparations 
that may be made and that should be made 
for this endless life, so that we need not fail 
and must not fail to enter safely and happily 
upon it. Thus is put upon our rational ex- 
istence its crown of everlasting endurance. 

[xor] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

Consider the mighty range and swiftness of 
the reason given to you. You can gather at 
this hour about you, almost as with a single 
mental grasp, the things that are, and that 
have been, and that are to come. You read 
at one glance the story of the pebble, and of 
the kindling and fading star. You sit in one 
moment at the feast of Belshazzar and by the 
table in the Mayflower cabin. You hear in 
one instant the roar of a hundred battles and 
the song at Bethlehem. You behold together 
the household circle, the graves green with the 
springtime grass, and the golden city enlight- 
ened and enlivened of God. Your rational 
soul can make for itself its home at once in 
all societies and all solitudes. Its flight to the 
uttermost parts of the earth is more swift than 
with the wings of the morning. And of this 
your capacity in reason it may almost be said, 
as of the vision of the Most High whose image 
you bear, that to its penetrating sight the 
darkness and the light are both alike. 

Thus in all your rational life, upheld of 
God, you walk with God. The blessing of 
your rational existence is indeed immeasurable. 

[ 108 ] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

Lessons of gratitude and of stirring and rev- 
erent hope must be impressed upon us. I 
trust we have a sense of the joy and worth 
of the being given us, and of the obhgations 
we owe to Him in whose likeness we are 
framed. We have had much experience year 
by year of the favor of God upon us in our 
land, and in the nourishing earth on which He 
has placed our lives. We have had our dili- 
gent cheerful labors upon our fields and in our 
shops and houses. We have had with the 
returning seasons the faithful seed-time and 
the harvest. We have had our grateful social 
and domestic engagements, and our public 
assemblies for worship in the Christian faith 
and the Christian hope. If we have had occa- 
sions of sorrow, these have belonged also to 
the being God has given us; and our sadness 
could not have been great if our human life 
were not full and precious. In all the course 
of our lives we may gratefully remember that 
we were created as the children of God, and 
that if we are not wholly false to ourselves 
we shall never be separated from His pres- 
ence and power and grace and blessing. 

[109] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

I trust you will none of you be false to your 
rational being. You are a matter of the earth. 
You are above all the other orders of nature 
and of earthly matter. You are not a beast; 
you are not a tree ; you are not a stone. You 
have the powers of consciousness and reason. 
You have the knowledge of truths and duties. 
You are at home in the midst of things invis- 
ible and immortal. You are a rational soul. 
Awakening responsibilities are on you. Your 
obligations answer to your rare and sacred 
heritage in life. You have a mind that can 
behold and choose. Take now your course of 
life above the track of the things that have not 
your far distant sight and your freedom. Have 
care for your way upon these highlands of 
being on which your feet are placed. Dis- 
tinguish and exalt yourself, as you are distin- 
guished and exalted of God. Keep from 
every darkness and stain the sacred image you 
bear of Him that made you. Draw nigh to 
God, as God is nigh to you. Set open now 
your soul to Him from whom all the springs 
of life come forth. 

And forever let us give thanks before Him. 

[110] 



RATIONAL EXISTENCE 

Forever let us worship and bow down before 
the Lord our Maker. Forever let all His 
works in all places of His dominion, bring 
Him blessing. Forever and ever let there be 
honor and glory unto the King eternal, incor- 
ruptible, invisible, the only God. 



[Ill] 



VI 

THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 



VI 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

Genesis 17:1. And when Abram was ninety years 
old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said 
unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and 
be thou perfect. 

This declaration — "I am the Almighty 
God" — was made to Abraham for his assur- 
ance and comfort, that he might not doubt 
concerning the fulfilment of the promises of 
God that had been given him, and that he 
might be steadfast in his obedience. The al- 
mightiness of God is a fitting ground of com- 
fort and hope and of reverent and steadfast 
service with all who know Him. 

In every such endeavor to look upon the 
things of God the limitations and uncertain- 
ties of our human vision must be kept in mind. 
It would be unbecoming that one should speak 
at every point, or scarcely at any point, with 
positiveness and in a tone of unyielding and 
dogmatic assurance. Much that one might 

[115] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

say, another might question or set aside. Yet 
it is not therefore necessary that one should 
clothe every sentence in terms of doubt. It 
is understood that we both speak and hear as 
men, and as best we may. And the end in 
view is not here the setting of every thought 
upon lines of assured exactness, from which 
none could ever depart in the least degree 
— a thing impossible ; but the end is that with 
every thought we may draw more nigh to 
God. If thus I could know while I speak that 
any of you were setting aside in your minds 
any words of mine and were putting in their 
stead words or thoughts to you more truthful 
and quickening, I should not grieve but re- 
joice. If a guide were attempting to lead a 
company of men among peaks and ranges of 
great mountains, he would not be concerned 
if each man of the company did not follow 
exactly in his steps nor look upon every pros- 
pect from the point he might choose. He 
would be concerned if any one failed to take 
in, in some manner, the far reaching views or 
to look upon the lofty eminences. What we 
now desire is that in whatever manner the 

[116] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

glory of the greatness of God may shine 
upon us. 

Somewhat in the same way, it should be 
further said that while proofs concerning the 
omnipotence of God may be spoken of, yet 
proof in strictest sense is not everywhere 
intended and indeed it would not be every- 
where possible. Reason is assuredly to be in 
every wise used. But the flight of reason in 
the midst of things eternal is not of necessity 
as the treading of a quadruped upon the 
ground. In the spiritual world within which 
man belongs proofs may be sometimes by 
sights and recognitions as well as by steps of 
logic. The thoughts which give strength and 
light and purity and hope and love within the 
soul are likely to be true, or not altogether 
false. Even as to the logical processes, every 
possible flaw in reasoning need not be over 
much dwelt on. Fragments may be broken 
from a great arch while the main sustaining 
stones are strong. 

But in this land of our souls, all things are 
not builded as of heavy matter, as it were of 
stones that feel forever the drawing of the 

[117] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

earth and are ready to fall. If we are cher- 
ishing at all the hopes and powers of immor- 
tality, there is a hold upon us as of gravity 
from above. An arch of crumbling and falling 
masonry may not more truly represent the 
aspirations and the securities of human life 
than the rainbow arch that rests upon the skies 
and the clouds and is builded of the light of 
heaven. So it is that with all our sober and 
hopeful thoughts we look for some rays of 
light from God. 

The omnipotence of God is His ability to do 
all things : or His ability to do all things what- 
soever He pleases. These two forms of state- 
ment, not exactly identical, are put forth thus 
together because together they lay hold upon 
the truth, and because some further remarks 
are to be made qualifying the meaning of both. 
When it is said that God can do all things 
there might easily come to mind certain appar- 
ent exceptions or limitations. 

First there are things contrary to reason 
and in their very nature impossible to be done. 
Thus God cannot make the sum of one and 
one to be three, or any other number than two. 

[ 118 ] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

He cannot make a part of a thing to be equal 
to or greater than the whole of it. He cannot 
make a triangle with two right angles, nor 
any figure without bounds, nor a lake without 
a shore, nor an island without surrounding 
water. He cannot make any thing to be dif- 
ferent from itself, while it remains as it is, nor 
think of a thing that it is, while it is not. 

In close connection with such matters, it 
may be seen that God cannot do things con- 
trary to His own purposes or choices. If He 
has chosen to create a race of beings with a 
rational freedom of the will, He cannot then 
move and control one of those free beings, with 
respect to that part of him which is free, as 
He moves and controls a stone ; but He must 
do it in a manner consistent with the freedom 
He has chosen to give him. It may further 
be said that God cannot do things contrary 
to His own moral perfections and inconsistent 
with His holiness. He cannot regard wrong 
as identical with right or as equally desirable. 
And He cannot be pleased with what is sinful, 
unlovely and hateful. 

Still further it may be added, God cannot 

[119] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

do what is against the substantial and neces- 
sary quality or condition of His own being as 
God. He cannot cease to be God. Whether 
it is because of what might be called a fixed 
natural necessity, or by reason of an equally 
steadfast and invincible moral repugnancy, or 
by both, or whether on this spot, through the 
shadows that lie upon it, we can at all discern 
such distinctions, we must still believe, stand- 
ing afar off, that He could not so turn His 
omnipotence to bear upon or destroy itself, 
or uproot and overwhelm and extinguish His 
own eternal self-existence and deity. 

But these things which have been mentioned 
as if they might be apparent exceptions or 
limitations to the omnipotence of God are in 
truth no limitations, but something far differ- 
ent and opposite. They are not defects in 
God; they are signs of His perfection. He 
can never be unreasonable, unlovely or weak. 
He can never do any thing that shall not be 
done in reason, righteousness and strength. 
To this point alone do all these exceptions 
come. The only things which He cannot do 
are the things which He would not be a glori- 

[120] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

ous and omnipotent God in doing. It should 
surely be counted to be by no failure of 
resources that He is forever and certainly 
exempt from folly, from weakness and from 
sin. 

Moreover with respect to each of these 
things of which it has been said, God cannot 
do them, the ground or occasion why He can- 
not, is in Himself alone and not in any out- 
ward hindrance. As to things unreasonable, 
for example, that the whole of a thing cannot 
be made less than each part, these rules of 
reason, though we cannot think of them ex- 
cept as necessary and absolute, are yet not 
foreign to the reason of God, but identical 
with it. They put no constraint upon Him, 
but they are of Himself. 

And if He cannot make right to be one 
with wrong, or be pleased with the wrong 
as with the right, or ever do wrong, it is 
from His own chosen and estabhshed holi- 
ness alone that He cannot. And the fact 
that He can never cease to be the God He is, 
arises from nothing outward or beside Him- 
self; but from the breadth and depth and 

[121] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

strength of that foundation only in Himself 
upon which He abides eternally the omnipo- 
tent God. 

Thus as before we see that there is no limi- 
tation upon the power of God save what may 
be found in His own divine completeness. 
God is limited by nothing but His own per- 
fections. So when we say that God can do 
all things, we mean all things which are with 
Him and in themselves reasonable and fit to 
be done. And when we say that He can do 
whatever He pleases, we mean whatever is 
pleasing to Him as a wise and holy God. And 
what He pleases stands for a pleasure free 
and wide and guided by nothing save the har- 
monies and beauties of His own self-balanced 
and undiscordant being. 

Here every thought of limitation may pass 
from our minds. All our labor must be to 
enlarge our thoughts towards the actual great- 
ness of the power that dwells with God. We 
have only to fear, what indeed must cer- 
tainly befall us, that with all our labor we 
shall come short of it. Looking in a little 
upon this storehouse of God's almightiness 

1122] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

we may set down somewhat of its greatness 
and contents. 

God is able to create and has created all that 
exists besides Himself. The central mystery, 
the vital tie and bond of the creation, I do 
not think we shall ever know, and we need 
not try to unfold it. God is able to uphold 
and guide and control, absolutely, subject to 
the laws and regulations only of His own 
choice and appointment, all that exists. His 
power reaches to the substance, to the inner- 
most essence and subsistency of matter and 
spirit. There is no effective opposition to it 
from any of His creatures, nor any hindrance 
against it from anything within the creation. 
The universe has no foothold for any move- 
ment or force against God, any more than for 
one standing on a planet there is a chance 
to lay hold on anything to stop the rolling 
of the very planet he stands on. The power 
of God is everywhere complete. It is not 
greater with the things that are great, nor 
less with the things that are small. It is on 
all things equal and perfect, and with no strain 
or pressure on itself. It is might to move and 

[123] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

hold at rest; to organize and to dissolve. It 
is control upon form and life and law. It is 
strength to do all that is done or that ever 
has been done, and all that may be done or 
that ever might be done. It is capacity equal 
to all that man can ever think of and to all 
that He who is able to think of all things, can 
think of. It is energy that has never any end, 
exhaustion or abatement. It is not measurable 
in the creation nor likenable to anything within 
it. It is of one birth and one quality with the 
divine eternity and the divine omniscience, and 
is shoreless and bottomless and matchless and 
solitary, and is of kindred alone with God. 
The omnipotence of God is thus deep, full 
and comprehensive ; real, veritable, broad and 
strong, corresponding to the name it bears: 
and is full and complete omnipotence. It 
reaches to the farthest bounds of thought, and 
without all bounds beyond. 

Now we may consider some of the proofs 
of this divine omnipotence. Perhaps they 
should rather be called signs or tokens of it. 
We get in part visions or glimpses of it which 
make upon us their own impressions of real- 

[124] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

ity, perhaps varying impressions. They can- 
not now be much dwelt upon; they can but 
be pointed at. 

Reason, I think, itself declares the omnipo- 
tence of God. The intellectual conception of 
God involves it. I mean that if we set forth 
at all to look for an Author of the creation, 
for a Being who is the ground of being, we 
are hurried shortly and as if by a strong neces- 
sity into the regions of infinity, and into the 
presence of greatness beyond measure. 

Somewhat in the same manner our full 
moral conceptions of God require that He 
should be almighty. In our persent modes 
of thought, the perfection and completeness 
of wisdom and of hoHness have need to be 
joined with an equal power. It is of violence 
to our highest thought of God, and unnatural 
and impossible that He should not be al- 
mighty. For so of. necessity do all these great 
elements of self -being and infinity, of eternity, 
might, and moral empire close together and 
abide one upon another. Once seen, they are 
known to be inseparable. 

I believe too when these things most high 

[125] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

and great concerning God are thought of, 
there is both a moral and an intellectual desir- 
ableness and safety in fastening upon them at 
their fullest measure. For everything high 
and great, which can reasonably be discerned 
concerning God, belongs therefore in realness 
and certainty with God. 

Further, the creation testifies to the al- 
mightiness of God. The thought of creation 
implies of necessity completeness of power, 
assuredly, within the creation itself. What- 
ever is created is subject by creation to Him 
who made it. He who creates it makes it in 
its substance, in all its powers and parts and 
principles. He is almighty in its being, in 
its very self. The power of God within the 
creation has not ceased in its actual exertion, 
as if with any single stroke the creation were 
finished in some past time. Every present 
energy of every sort within the creation, mov- 
ing or resisting, is nothing else but the power 
of God, moving or holding fast upon it. It 
is by no force of abstract reasoning alone that 
this truth is in our times impressed upon us. 
The students of natiu*e are discerning with 

1126] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

startling clearness the marks of intelligence 
and power in action upon all the matter of 
all the worlds. It is a single intelligence and 
a single power in unity of purpose and of 
method, controlling every mass and penetrat- 
ing every atom of the material creation. Its 
movements are calculable and measurable, 
though they are inconceivable in speed and 
might. It is known that it seizes and makes 
to vibrate every particle of matter within the 
utmost bounds of the visible universe. It is 
not open to any doubt that there is an intel- 
ligent almightiness within the creation reach- 
ing as far as the creation reaches. It is the 
almightiness of God. There is no need to 
stop for the question whether through out- 
ward nature alone this intelligent almightiness 
would be known to possess the qualities of 
self-conscious life. Our own rational souls 
are not altogether parts of what we thus call 
outward nature. It is not likely to the view 
of reason that the all-knowing and almighty 
Maker of all created existence should be lack- 
ing Himself in that crowning glory of personal 
being with which He has endowed all the mul- 

[127] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

titude of mankind who are the work of His 
own hand. Rather with reason we look upon 
Him as the one in whose image we are made 
by Him, and we recognize Him as Father 
of om* spirits, the God of the spirits of all 
flesh. 

The almightiness of God is round about us 
and within us. A glimpse of what this al- 
mightiness is we may see in a single instance. 
The earth as it swings in its revolution around 
the sun is held in its path by what we call the 
attraction of gravitation. It is a power pass- 
ing all around us and through us, unseen and 
unfelt; yet it holds the earth to the sun by 
a force as great as that of wires of steel stretch- 
ing from the earth to the sun, and set over 
every inch of the face of the earth as thick 
as the grasses upon the summer fields; and 
our earth is but as a grain of sand among the 
enormous and innumerable orbs that sweep 
throughout the depths of the creation in speed, 
in order, and in silence. And gravity is but 
one among the powers in motion or at rest 
throughout the creation. Thus does the crea- 
tion make manifest the omnipotence of God. 

[128] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

We cannot think either that we have this 
evidence of power with God complete within 
the actual, present creation only, and com- 
mensurable with it, but not of full and abso- 
lute omnipotence ; — as if God were able to do 
so much as we see to have been done and not 
more. It might appear to be a sufficient reply 
to say that a power complete throughout the 
whole present existing creation might be ade- 
quate for all the practical piu^poses of himian 
life and thought. In a manner indeed, it 
might; but in a manner, possibly, not. It is 
a mysterious power of the human mind by 
which we compass in thought the bounds of all 
present outward existence with imaginations 
of things beyond. All things that exist are 
not of certainty to our thought all the things 
that might exist. This reaching of human 
thought beyond all known present (outward) 
existence is likely to be, and indeed must be, 
by some reflection or some shadow, from the 
being of God Himself the Maker of man. 
Thus conceiving God, we believe that He both 
fills and overpasses the worlds He has made. 
He occupies and transcends His creation. It 

[129] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

is not likely at least, that God has put upon 
any man powers of vision beyond the bounds 
of His own being. He has not ordained a 
creation from any of whose eminences there 
are prospects wider than Himself. If we dis- 
cern beyond the range of the existing creation 
a place or scope for a possible surpassing 
absolute omnipotence, that is therefore the 
omnipotence of God. 

It has appeared also to many that the very 
act of creation, which indeed, we but dimly 
apprehend, must of necessity imply a freedom 
and range of choice concerning it, stretching 
around and beyond the particular thing that 
might be created. 

Still further with respect to a boundary of 
the universe itself. There is none that knows 
of it. No eye has seen it. No sense the most 
acute and far running has ever told of it. We 
only know that the universe has its boundaries 
— if we know it — by that force of reason which 
leads to the greater possible thought of God 
beyond it. The divine eternity alone encom- 
passes it. The divine infinity alone pervades 
and enwraps it. The universe is only in this 

[130] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

way understood to be small, not by itself, but 
by the measure of God who is great. 

Thus may the creation be as an island whose 
bounds are indeed too remote to be seen, but 
upon which one listening in the silence may 
hear from far off on all its shores the roar of 
the deep, the beating waves of the unmeasur- 
able greatness of God. 

So does the creation reveal the omnipotence 
of its Maker. The proofs we have cited may 
be dim in part ; but in solid bulk they are clear 
and strong. The creation is everywhere sub- 
jected to its Maker, and obedient to Him. It 
makes known in all its motions and substances 
the most stupendous forces from Him now 
acting upon it, and it has upon whatever is 
reasonable within it the impress or reflection 
of that same might without all limit, from 
whence it came, and upon the bosom of which 
it is borne. 

Again, conspicuously and clearly, the Scrip- 
tures declare that God is almighty. These 
Scriptures are fittingly called the Word of 
God Himself. They were given to us by men 
whose walk was near to God, and who had 

[131] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

knowledge of Him. God in His word makes 
known of Himself, that He has full power 
over men and over all other beings. He affirms 
that none upon earth or in heaven can resist 
Him, or stay His hand. He declares that He 
does according to all His pleasure; and that 
there is no God or real power beside Himself. 
He appeals to His creation in proof of His 
omnipotence. He takes to Himself all its 
power and greatness as His own. He affirms 
that it exists only by His will and from Him- 
self. He calls Himself by name Almighty. 
And he declares it directly, as in the words of 
the text, saying to Abraham, "I am the Al- 
mighty God." 

There is a peculiar interest to be taken in 
the manner of these Biblical representations, 
and especially in what is said of the creation, 
and of God's power appearing in it. When 
God speaks in the Bible of His creating work 
as His own, and as obedient to Himself, it is 
done in what may be called a free way. It 
is as if in His own thought the question of 
His supremacy throughout the creation had 
never arisen. And when He speaks with His 

[132] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

creatures He does not argue concerning His 
power, as a thing of real dispute, but He 
points to these His works, affirming, or more 
frequently assuming only, that they are His, 
and leaving them to make on the mind of the 
beholder their own impression. There is often 
also a certain style of assurance and of exul- 
tation that may be traced upon these Bibhcal 
representations of the power of God through- 
out His creation: — "Yea, before the day was, 
I am He; and there is none that can deliver 
out of my hand." "I will work and who shall 
let it?" "To whom then will ye liken me and 
shall I be equal, saith the Holy One. Lift 
up your eyes on high, and behold who hath 
created these things, that bringeth out their 
host by number; He calleth them all by 
names, by the greatness of His might; not 
one faileth." So do the stars of heaven march 
like an army at His bidding, none ever leaving 
his place in the perfect ranks. Or He leads 
them out as a shepherd that calls to each of 
his flock by name. They go after Him along 
the paths of the sky, drawn by the strong per- 
suasion of the voice of God, and not one of 

[133] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

them has ever a mind to stop. So in language 
still more sublime and suggestive there is set 
forth the greatness of God before all His 
works and beyond them all. The whole now 
visible and existing creation is declared to be 
with Him but as a garment that He may put 
on or lay aside. Such is all the generation of 
the earth and of the heavens in the day wherein 
they are created. And thus does God con- 
firm and establish in His Word the highest 
thoughts that reason is able to frame concern- 
ing His power and greatness. 

With respect to this divine omnipotence, 
thus in general defined and established, some 
fui'ther remarks may be made touching upon 
its characteristics and connections. This om- 
nipotence is not sheer unqualified force. It 
is not mere strength, might naked, grim and 
bald against which nothing can stand. There 
is no such bare almightiness. The only al- 
mightiness the universe contains is the almight- 
iness of God, and that is divine. It is not 
sheer and stark and headlong. It is exact and 
fitting, trained, skilful, balanced and obedient. 
It has before been stated that the power of 

[134] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

God is in precise adjustment and harmony 
with His reason and His hohness. This is 
not that reason and hohness keep perpetual 
watch upon it, as upon a sleeping hon, as if 
in itself it were a thing but dull and alien in 
its quality from those high perfections. It 
is their native and equal partner and ally. 
And it is in full accord with all goodness and 
intelligence by its own quality, because it is 
divine. The almightiness of God is not as a 
weaver's beam in the hand of a giant. It is 
an instrument, mighty, delicate and facile. It 
is as light as a thought of God. It can trace 
the veins of a microscopic cell. It can mix the 
purple and gold of sunset. It can create a 
soul, rational and incorruptible. It is not 
indeed a mere instrument at all. The almight- 
iness of God is His perfect ableness to do all 
that lies within the range of intelligence and 
goodness. It has no more to do with the over- 
coming of resistance, as by any opposing will, 
or from any weight, as of dead matter, than 
it has with the seeking out of arrangements 
and adaptations, or the keeping of proprieties 
and harmonious beauties. The foundations of 

[ 135 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

omnipotence itself may lie as truly upon light- 
ness and moral balance — upon exact and per- 
fect aptitude and insight, as upon energy of 
will. The being of the Most High is in all 
respects complete, and the completeness of it 
is full in every part. There is no putting forth 
of bare power, shorn of all its intelligence and 
devoid of all its moral proprieties and signifi- 
cances, as if a stone were to rush meaningless 
into space. When we look upon the power 
of God in nature, it is in such order that it 
seems to be not might, but law. When we feel 
it in our own souls it is with such light, such 
majesty and grace, that it never appears to 
us as force upon us, but as the presence of 
reason, the commanding awe and attraction of 
holiness and truth. Thus only is it to be be- 
held and thought of, with these its robes of 
wisdom and comeliness upon it. 

Omnipotence is the energy with God of 
what is orderly, dehcate, tasteful and right. 
It is great and gentle, shining, steadfast and 
strong; it is light and quick, supple and sen- 
sitive, tender and majestic and awful, it is 
disciplined, graceful, tuneful, and beauteous, 

[136] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

pure, just, reasonable, considerate, divine. 
And thus in the Bible God appeals to His 
works of power, not commonly as displaying 
might alone, but reason and purpose with it. 
"The heavens declare the glory of God" — the 
blended glory of intelligence, beneficence and 
power. "Day unto day uttereth speech, and 
night unto night showeth knowledge." By His 
Spirit hath He garnished — ^made beauteous 
and fair — the heavens. "He covereth Himself 
with light as with a garment. He stretcheth 
out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth 
them abroad as a tent to dwell in." Thus God 
has not cast abroad these vast and innumerable 
orbs as the storehouses of power, or as the roll- 
ing balls of some gigantic game. He has 
rather uttered them as words of intelligence, 
speaking of Himself. He makes the heaven, 
not a great weapon of might, brandished over 
us, but as a curtain, the drapery of a tent, 
garnished, resplendent and beauteous, for the 
dwelling-place of God. The almightiness of 
God is then His power and skill to spread 
these heavens, the awful and befitting resi- 
dence and temple of His own perfections, and 

[ 137 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

of Himself. It is His full ability to make 
all His works in creation, and also in govern- 
ment, the perfect expression of His infinite 
being and glory. It is the Most High Himself 
in the pervading presence, the unhindered and 
irresistible prevalence of all His reason and 
grace throughout the universe He has made. 

We may perceive also that this constant alli- 
ance of the wisdom and goodness of God with 
His omnipotence must perforce cause all our 
thoughts of that omnipotence to be quickening 
and cleansing in their moral effects upon our 
souls. This is the fitting end and result of all 
our meditations concerning God. This is the 
purpose, wherever in the Bible the power of 
God is set before us, and even where no special 
mention may be made of moral accompani- 
ments and obligations. For the revealing 
Spirit has presumed somewhat on the use by 
man of these inborn and reasonable instincts 
that ally omnipotence with its kindred attri- 
butes of completeness in wisdom and holiness. 
Thus in the book of Job, though greatness in 
power alone is most spoken of, yet it brings 
forth at last moral impressions, as by the 

[138] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

presence of the over-awing and commanding 
righteousness of God. So did he who thus 
beheld the great God abhor himself and re- 
pent. So should all our discernments of the 
greatness of God ever lead us to penitence and 
submission, to trust and love and service. And 
behold, He is not far from every one of us. 

By these thoughts we are taught our de- 
pendence upon God. It is needful to trust 
in God. It is safe and wholesome and 
strengthening. Even as to bodily life it would 
be better for us if we considered more that 
the goodness and wisdom and almightiness of 
God are always abiding and acting within us. 
We are to keep His laws; we are to do dili- 
gently our part. We are to welcome and trust 
His power within us, and we are to submit 
with grateful hearts to His clearer wisdom. 
And we shall be the more strong in soul and 
body. 

We must be most grateful for the revelation 
God has made of Himself through His Son, 
our Lord and our human brother. He has 
thus strengthened our thoughts concerning 
His own personal life. His care for us, and 

[139] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

His personal nearness to us. He has made 
provision by the display of His holiness and 
His grace for the cleansing of our souls from 
the stain of sin, and has set before us a quick- 
ened hope of an endless personal life with 
Him. 

Finally, we may find it to be certain that 
the wisdom and holiness of God will be every- 
where and forever in control throughout all 
the worlds. The omnipotence of God is for- 
ever His own. It holds man in all his gen- 
erations and multitudes as a drop in the 
bucket. It takes up the isles and the conti- 
nents as a very little thing. It pervades, 
upholds and controls His creation in all its 
elements and powers. It casts the hght of 
His intelHgence, clear and piercing, upon 
every eye of reason that may open to behold 
it. It makes the splendors and sanctities of 
His holiness to blaze upon all that is moral 
in the universe that He has ordained. It 
will endure and act when the pillars of these 
heavens, firm against all but its own reproof, 
shall tremble and fall. It will uphold the 
arches of each new enlarging or succeeding 

[ 14,0 ] 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 

creation, whose widening foundations itself 
will lay. It will survive and abide, undimin- 
ished, complete and supreme, with nothing 
like it in might or glory in being with it. It 
will endure throughout the changes of time 
and the progression of eternity, whose deter- 
mined order ahke it brings to pass ; and it will 
hold high over every wave of futile rebellion 
or of change, the throne itself of God, and 
will abide the everlasting companion of Him 
that sits upon it. And in the discernment of 
its ordered beneficence and glory it will make 
to awake throughout all the borders of His 
dominions the song, full as the voice of many 
waters, and whose strains will never die: — 



C( 



ALLELUIA, FOR THE LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT 
REIGNETH." 



[141] 



VII 

THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF 
THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 



VII 

THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF 
THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

Isaiah ^2:1-Ji.. Behold my servant, whom I uphold; 
mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my 
spirit upon him; he shall bring forth judgment to the 
Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his 
voice to he heard in the street, A bruised reed shall he 
not break, and the smohing flax shall he not quench; he 
shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not 
fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the 
earth; and the isles shall wait for his law. 

These verses in Isaiah are a prophecy con- 
cerning the authority and government of 
Jesus Christ in the world. They are going 
on now toward fulfihnent. I purpose to speak 
of the nature and extent of this authority, and 
of its hold on us. 

We should consider at the outset, that this 
is a matter of fact with which we are to deal. 
It is a thing of real occurrence and existence, 
whatever else it may be. This sense of reality 
may sometimes shp out of our minds when 
it should not. You are busied through six 

[ 145 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

days of the week, as you know, with real 
things. At least they are things that you think 
of as real. The word "business" which is 
applied to your common occupations, has itself 
a kind of sound of reality. Business is some- 
thing solid. It is not a thing fanciful or imag- 
inary, or sentimental or theoretical. It is a 
plain bare thing. "Business is business." The 
natural objects of common business are such 
as can be taken hold of and known. Money 
can be seen — if you can get it. Crops and 
farm stock, houses and lands, horses and car- 
riages, food and clothing, leather and hard- 
ware and dry goods, — all products of manu- 
facture and all articles of merchandise, you 
can look at and handle and use. Possibly some 
of you may think when you come to matters 
of religion that you strike a different line of 
things. You may think that you come to mat- 
ters that do not have much substance in them. 
You know that it is important for you to 
prosper in your work or business for Friday 
or Saturday or Monday; but you may not 
be so clear that prospering in the business of 
Sunday would be of any great account to you. 

[146] 



THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

But you would make a mistake if you should 
have such thoughts. I admit that there is a 
difference between common, week-day things, 
and the things proper to the Sabbath day. 
But it is not a difference as to reality and solid- 
ness ; or if it is, the advantage in that respect 
is not with the common week-day things. 
There is a difference between beef and patri- 
otism; but it is not better to have a good 
dinner than to have a good country. A man 
would make a mistake who should sell his 
birthright in a good country for a mess of 
pottage. The most precious things of man's 
life are not always, nor mostly, material things. 
The things of religion, though they are not 
directly material things, are very real things. 
Things are real when they have actual exist- 
ence and place in the world. Things are 
important when they control or affect, or have 
influence upon many and great concerns. 

Now we will take one specimen of the things 
that come before us on the Sabbath days and 
see how it is as to reality and importance. We 
will take the authority of the Lord Jesus 
Christ as it actually appears and exists in the 

[147] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

world, and see what sort of a thing it is. We 
will not make up anything about it. We will 
take it and look at it as we find it. And I 
will try as to my part, to speak fairly, and not 
otherwise. 

We can see then, to begin with, that there 
are very great numbers of people in the world, 
certainly, who are called by the Christian 
name. Christian nations in name occupy Eu- 
rope, North and South America, large por- 
tions of Australia and the neighboring islands, 
and parts of Asia and Africa. These are 
great and commanding portions of the globe. 
The control of these nations extends far be- 
yond their actual occupancy ; and while Chris- 
tians in name are still a minority of the 
population of the earth, yet as to power and 
voice in the world's affairs, they are a vast 
majority. In all matters of knowledge and 
civilization this leadership of the Christian 
nations is most decisive. 

You may say that some of these nations 
are not Christian in much except the name, 
and that in all these nominally Christian lands 
there are great numbers of people who do 

[148] 



THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

not personally have much thought concerning 
Christ; and it may be true. But yet the 
force of this name has stamped itself in some 
way upon these lands. They all date their 
years from His birth. The law from Him has 
shaped largely the institutions and social state 
of all these nations. They are widely different 
in many things from nations not at all Chris- 
tian, nations wholly Mohammedan or pagan. 

The force of this contrast is not I think in 
reality weakened by reflection upon the splen- 
did Power that is now newly arising upon 
the Eastern shores of the Pacific. As Chris- 
tian believers we have no interest in making 
scanty or faint the hght from God that shines 
in every land. And the people of Japan have 
at least, under all the conditions, been singu- 
larly hospitable to the rays of Christian light 
that have only begun in recent years to fall 
upon them. 

Looking again on the Christian lands, we 
find it an impressive matter that when the 
Christian Sabbath day comes, multitudes of 
people in all these lands leave off their common 
work or common pleasure and assemble to- 

[ 149 J 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

gether to think of Christian things and to offer 
praise and worship to God and to Christ. We 
find thousands and hundreds of thousands of 
places of Christian worship. They are built 
and maintained with cost, and often with heavy 
sacrifice. Multitudes of persons are actively 
interested in spreading the knowledge of 
Christ and His work and law throughout the 
world. The Christian Scriptures are circulated 
and read out of measure beyond any other 
writings or books. The Bible is printed in 
every written language of the earth. Many 
languages have been put into writing for the 
first time in order that the Bible might be 
printed and read in them. Great numbers 
of men are distinctly enrolled in Christian 
churches. There are in the United States 
alone, and in Protestant denominations alone, 
fifteen (I suppose more than fifteen) millions 
of church members. 

Here again one might say that very many 
of these church members do not seem to be 
very thoroughly Christian, except in their 
profession, and it may be true. But I say 
also in reply, that the actual effect of the work 

[150] 



THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

and life of Christ throughout these churches, 
and much beyond them, is immense and 
profound. 

After every allowance and abatement, there 
are vast multitudes of men in the world who 
have a most singular and commanding respect 
for this person, Jesus Christ. They call Him 
their Lord. They honor His name above 
every other name. They desire to do Him 
service. They try to copy in themselves His 
character and spirit. They trust Him in all 
the greatest things of life. They commit their 
souls to His keeping in life and in death. 

These things are peculiar. They are soli- 
tary and unique, whatever else they are. No 
other man ever had any such influence over 
men, or anything like it. There have been, 
and are, many popular men, great men and 
powerful men ; but not in this measure or kind. 
There is no one else that so many people have 
such a care for. 

We know how people are sometimes moved 
to see great men. But if it could be announced 
by any one authorized to do so, that at a cer- 
tain time not far distant, Jesus Christ would 

[151] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

come to this earth and show Himself to His 
friends, and if this were thought to be true, it 
would make a stir among men such as all the 
world never saw. This may not be quite a fair 
supposition in the way of comparison, since 
such an event as the return again to the earth 
of a man who had once lived upon it, and had 
gone from it, would be in any case a thing 
most strange and moving. 

But leaving that, I say farther that even as 
things now are, the expectation entertained by 
great numbers of men, that at their own nat- 
ural death they will themselves pass into the 
personal presence of Jesus Christ, has now an 
actual effect upon them that is most singular, 
and most impressive, when it is considered. It 
is an effect far more powerful than any such 
expectation has had or ever could have upon 
any like number of persons with respect to 
meeting again, beyond this life, with any other 
single person that ever lived. As to other 
meetings beyond the earth, one man may think 
of some of his own particular friends, and 
another man of his friends; but no great 
numbers of men have any deep interest and 

[152] 



THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

concern as to meeting any one and the same 
person, except in the case of these multitudes 
who look forward with awe and hope to their 
meeting with Jesus Christ, who is to them 
Lord, and Keeper and Judge of their souls. 

None of the greatest men ever cast on num- 
bers of other men any such spell as this, reach- 
ing through this life, and over upon a life 
anticipated beyond the present. I should care 
little about seeing Julius Caesar, though as to 
mind and force of will he was one of the very 
greatest of men. I would as soon see Brutus. 
I should care more to see Moses, or David, 
or Paul, or Martin Luther, or John Milton. 
But neither I nor you, nor any considerable 
number of other men, have such thoughts or 
concerns, such expectations and hopes resting 
upon any other man as these multitudes have 
with regard to Jesus Christ their Lord. Not 
even the founders of other rehgions, as Mo- 
hammed or Confucius, have any such present 
and continuous, vital, personal hold on their 
followers. 

I am speaking of these things as facts only, 
without saying anything yet as to whether 

[ 153 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

there is any due ground for these feelings or 
not. These feelings exist. It is a very strik- 
ing fact that they do. 

You may see too, that this personal influ- 
ence of Jesus Christ has continued for a very 
long time. It has held on through nineteen 
centuries and on the whole it has increased, 
and gained force through all that space. The 
authority and personal weight of Jesus Christ 
among men is greater today than it ever was 
in any of the former ages. Looking widely 
over the earth there can be no question of it, 
— and there is nothing else like it. 

It is true indeed that the memories of other 
men are cherished, and that their influence is 
felt long after they are gone from the world; 
and sometimes more and more as time goes 
on. Lincoln and Washington are not for- 
gotten, and their work is not growing small. 
The influence of the writings and sayings of 
Socrates and Plato is still great, perhaps as 
great as ever. The effect of the life of Julius 
Cgesar has not ceased altogether to be felt. 
But this is a very different matter. No great 
amount of personal devotion now exists toward 

1154] 



THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

any of these men. No great care is now shown 
by any great number of men to make their 
own lives pleasing to these men that are gone. 
There is no great sense — nor scarcely any 
sense at all — of constraining authority over 
life proceeding from any of these men. I do 
not care much whether JuHus Caesar approves 
of anything that I do or not. I do not care at 
all. I do not think that any one of you has 
a grain of any such care, — ^nor any one else 
in the whole world. The personal authority 
of Julius Cgesar over human life has waned 
and gone out utterly. I am not disturbed by 
knowing that my opinions and practice in some 
matters of morals differ from those of Plato. 
And I do not look even to Lincoln or Wash- 
ington for any decisive judgment upon what 
my Kfe and character have loeen, or ought to 
be. I do not pray to them, nor offer them 
thanks. None of you do. No man does. 
But multitudes of men do look to Jesus Christ 
with reverence and trust, with gratitude and 
hope and love as the Guide and Lord of their 
lives. Great numbers of men in former times 
have given up life itself rather than to cast 

[155] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

aside or deny their trust in Him. Some have 
given up their lives in this way but lately. I 
think there are many who would do the same, 
if they had to make the choice. And there 
are uncounted numbers of those to whom their 
trust in Him has been their chief support in 
times of trouble, and their only dependence 
in the hour of death. 

Jesus Christ has thus a following in the 
world such as no other man has, or ever did 
have. And though He died and was buried 
centuries ago, yet He has more actual power 
here on earth than any other man has, or ever 
did have. 

Some men may think slightingly of the 
power of Christ because it is not put forth 
through the ordinary visible forms of human 
government. He did not get this control over 
men by outward force. He does not now 
maintain any visible organized, outward, forci- 
ble authority or government in the world. 
Nevertheless He has this great authority and 
weight. Was it not said of Him by the 
prophet, that He should not strive, nor cry, 
nor lift up His voice in the street? Did not 

[166] 



THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

Daniel speak of His kingdom as of a great 
stone, filling the earth, that no man's hands 
had ever hewed out? Did not He Himself 
say that His kingdom was not of this world in 
any such way that His servants should fight 
for Him? But He has the kingdom. 

You may ask if the fact that great numbers 
have had these feelings toward Jesus Christ 
proves of itself that such feelings are well 
grounded. No, it does not prove it. But this 
influence, this power, long-continuing, spread- 
ing, steadfast, is an impressive thing, and it 
is natural enough to believe that it springs 
somewhere out of an eternal source. But I 
am now not much busied with proving any- 
thing. I am only making statement of some 
facts. They are facts that deserve in them- 
selves to be thought of. 

But if you look further you will see that this 
great authority and influence of Jesus Christ 
is very remarkable as to its nature and moral 
quality. His control over men is not only 
singularly strong, but it is also singularly just 
and good. 

I am still keeping to my purpose of dealing 

[167] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

only with plain facts. I am not going to enter 
into any argument to prove that what I say 
here is true. If it does not seem to be true, 
it need not be believed. But I think it is plain 
on the face of things that the authority of the 
Lord Jesus Christ bears against what is evil 
and sustains what is good. It presses men 
everywhere toward the highest and best things. 
Evil enough, indeed, is to be found in Chris- 
tian lands, and with Christian men; but real 
Christian feelings will not be found helping on 
toward the evil. I think you will see that the 
more thoroughly men are Christian, the more 
strongly they are turned from evil. At least 
you will see that Christians themselves every- 
where assert and maintain that this is true. 
They would all say that while they are con- 
scious of much evil in themselves, they are yet 
most sure that the authority of Jesus Christ 
upon them, so far as they feel it and yield to 
it, is never toward evil, but always toward all 
good. It is a fact that all say this thing. It 
is a most extraordinary fact. If what they 
say is true, it goes far to show that the power 
of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world is the 

1168] 



THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

same thing with the power of God. It is a 
power opposing with high commands every 
shape of wickedness, and impelling with 
mighty motives toward whatever is holy and 
gracious, — it looks like the power of God on 
earth. 

I am not now much taken up with proving 
anything concerning the truth of the Christian 
religion, or concerning the central reality and 
rightfulness of the authority of Jesus Christ. 
We are only looking at these lines of facts, 
to see a little what they mean, and what atten- 
tion they deserve from us. Yet along with 
what has come to our thoughts already, it is 
plain, I think, that there has been a very 
remarkable fulfilment of the ancient prophe- 
cies concerning the coming of one great Per- 
son whose glory and grace should shine over 
all the earth and abide upon it; one of the 
increase of whose government and peace there 
should be no end; one who should reprove 
with equity and patience, and with prevailing 
might, for the meek of the earth; one who 
should not fail nor be discouraged until He 
should set judgment in all the earth, and for 

[159] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

whose law the isles should wait. It is going 
on before your sight. His kingdom spreads. 
His law prevails. Men submit themselves in 
love and thankfulness to Him. The whole 
great prediction is beginning to come to pass. 
It has in fact come illustriously to pass al- 
ready. The earth is being warmed by these 
gracious influences from the life and reign of 
the Lord Jesus among men. The warmth 
comes slowly, like the slow-coming heat of the 
sun in spring. The cold of the earth stands 
against it, like drifts of snow and great sheets 
of northern ice. But day by day the sun 
circles higher in the sky; and day after 
day — century beyond century — the light, 
the warmth, the righteousness, the love 
prevail. 

We can now see to what point we have come. 
This person Jesus Christ has been set forth 
among men in a position singular, solitary and 
commanding. Through many ages and on 
many lands He has taken to Himself in fact 
a power the like of which in range and scope 
is unknown on earth. It puts its hand on 
every aim and interest of human life. In its 

[160] 



THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

claims it reaches to every present duty and 
controls every immortal hope. 

In some practical reflections that may be 
made upon these facts, this may well stand 
first; the Christian religion is a thing great. 
It is large, if there is anything that is large. 
No human concern is wider in its sweep, or 
more important in its issues. It follows too 
that the Christian religion is a thing calling 
for direct and active attention. It runs close 
to life. It is vital in its own nature. Its very 
motive and substance lie in its purpose to 
direct all life and to shape all character. This 
mighty and spreading authority upon which 
we have looked is an authority over the lives 
of men. It calls for grateful recognition and 
obedience from every man. It is something 
to be dealt with, not to be lightly let alone. 
It is a matter to be at the least considered. 
Some action should be taken on it — whatever 
is done. Surely it should not be put off with 
delays. Business methods require that we take 
in hand the things that are at hand to be done. 
This is at hand. It is within the close range 
of practical life. You are not unmindful of 

[161] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

your soul, your self, your endless standing 
with God? All these things the authority of 
Jesus Christ bears on. So at least, the claim 
is made. This claim, this authority, in its force 
and nature, is a thing to be weighed and pro- 
nounced upon with care and promptness. 

It follows also, I think, from what we have 
seen, that we may commit our souls to the 
guidance and keeping of the Lord Jesus Christ 
with a reasonable confidence and certainty of 
everlasting life and safety. His power has the 
manner and bearing of steadfast, reasonable, 
rightful, unending continuance. The things 
which we see with Him are not altogether 
temporal; they are also eternal. 

I know the penetrating force of the doubts 
that may often afflict our minds concerning 
the endurance of the life of man, and concern- 
ing the verity and realness of the things that 
are beyond, as we believe, the present, visible, 
transitory frame of nature. But I know also 
that the hopes of man lie alone along this line 
of the Christian faith. Nothing else appears 
in like manner to lay hold on an eternal state. 
Here is the one endless prospect or hope for 

[162] 



THE AUTHORITY OF CHRIST 

human life. I behold the mighty living wit- 
ness that God hath given to us eternal life 
and that that life is in His Son. I hear the 
lofty command to fight the fight of faith, and 
to lay hold upon eternal life. It is wise to 
hope. It is safe to beheve. 

I press upon you therefore, all these con- 
siderations drawn from the continuing power 
and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, visible 
among men. It is clear certainly, that there 
is a great cause going on in the world. It is 
great as to what has been done, and as to what 
is promised. It is asserted and believed by 
many, that the only Son of God has been once 
on the earth, a man among men, and that He 
has set up here in the world a continuing 
authority most powerful and gracious. It is 
claimed and believed by many that He is will- 
ing and able to forgive the sins of penitent, 
humble and trustful men, and to deliver them 
from sin. It is promised, and it is hoped and 
expected by many, that He will carry every 
loving and trusting man beyond all the dark- 
ness of the earth into the security and blessing 
of a holy and immortal life. 

[163] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

What are your thoughts, what are your 
cares, what are your wishes, what are your 
hopes, what are your purposes and ex- 
pectations concerning Him, and concerning 
yourself? 



[164] 



VIII 

THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 
OF GOD 



VIII 

THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 
OF GOD 

Acts 17:81. Because He hath appointed a day, in 
the which He will judge the world in righteousness hy 
that Man whom He hath ordained, 

"That Man" here spoken of is the Lord 
Jesus, who is elsewhere repeatedly referred to 
as the Judge of men. In the tenth chapter 
of the book of the Acts, it is said that He is 
"ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and 
dead." But it is also often directly declared 
in the Bible that God is Himself the final 
Judge. Thus in Romans 14 : 12, it is written, 
"So every one of us shall give account of him- 
self to God." In Hebrews 12:23, there is 
ascribed directly to God the title, "The Judge 
of all." The same phrases or forms of words 
concerning the office of judgment are made 
use of with respect both to Christ and to God. 
Thus it is said in 2 Corinthians 5:10, "For we 
must all appear before the judgment seat of 

[167] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

Christ." And in Romans 14:10 (R. V.), 
"For we shall all stand before the judgment 
seat of God." In 2 Timothy 4:1, the names 
of God and Christ are joined in connection 
with this act of judgment, and the Apostle 
says, "I charge thee therefore before God and 
the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the 
quick and the dead." 

It is evident from these and other similar 
passages, that the work of judgment, in what- 
ever manner performed by the Lord Jesus 
Christ, is a divine work, and is wrought by 
Christ by virtue of His divine office and rela- 
tionship as the Representative of God and as 
God. It is fitting that the same being who 
was on earth as the Redeemer of men, should 
appear also as Judge. But these thoughts, 
so far as concerns any distinctions in the divine 
being need not now be kept in mind. It is 
a judgment of God that is foretold in the text. 

It is a serious theme which is thus brought 
before us. But the most high and refreshing 
things of life are always serious. This sub- 
ject — the righteous judgment of God on hu- 
man life, is in its nature lofty, animating and 

[168] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

hopeful. And may the Most High God Him- 
self enlighten our souls as we turn our thoughts 
upon it. 

I shall speak first of the general nature and 
significance of the judgment of God on men, 
second, of the proofs or signs of the coming 
judgment of God, third, of the fitness of God 
to be the Judge of men, and fourth of the 
results of the judgment of God upon the 
standing and repute and destiny of men. 

First, the general significance of the fact 
of an appointed judgment of God is to make 
the world of men a responsible and regulated 
world. A world that is to be judged is not 
a loose place of life. It is not a world where 
men may go this way and that way, and no 
matter where, and without its making in the 
end any difference. It is not a place of care- 
less running toward no end. It is not as if 
men were let out upon the earth as birds into 
the air, to go where they would. There is an 
end to it. There is a reckoning for it. Men 
are not left here to go always loose. They 
are to be brought together. There is to be 
a result of life, on before us. It is as if the 

[169] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

birds were let out, not to fly hither and thither 
at random, but to fly far away to some distant 
point, where they would all be looked for. 
Men are to be looked for at the end of life. 
They will come together, all of them, to a place 
of account. 

This signifies that there is a proper purpose 
and a law for each human life. Each life will 
come somewhere to a reckoning as to how it 
has gone. There is a trial to be made at some 
time concerning it. 

A strong meaning lies in this great fact of 
judgment, even when we look upon it only in 
this wide way. The accountability of life sur- 
roimds us on every side. We are in a world 
that God will judge in righteousness. He 
will see how all things in it square with right- 
eousness, or how they do not. He has a mind 
to judge it. He has set a day to do it. We 
shall all ourselves appear before the judgment 
seat of God. We are in no place for heedless 
living. Moral capacities have been given us, 
opportunities are set before us ; and we shall 
make a report concerning them. 

We come, second, to the signs or proofs 

[170] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

of a judgment by God. The great proof of 
a coming judgment is the clear declaration of 
the Bible. We believe there is to be a judg- 
ment because we believe the Bible which fore- 
tells it. 

All the proofs of every sort on which the 
Bible rests are proofs of the judgment. Be- 
neath all belief in the Bible, and along with 
all its proofs, rest and go the belief and evi- 
dence concerning the being of God. If there 
is a God He is likely to have revealed Himself 
to men. All proofs of revelation, historical or 
providential, imply a concern of God for man. 
So as to the judgment; if there is a God, He 
is likely to be the Judge of men. The con- 
tinuing care of God for the deeds and destinies 
of men implies it. Biblical truth is confirmed 
in history, which shows the effect of truth on 
those receiving it. The truth respecting a 
judgment on men is confirmed by historical 
beginnings — they might be called — of judg- 
ment. There is a distinguishing already and 
an assorting out, swift or slow, of the evil from 
among the good in human life, and a difference 
set between them. Bibhcal truth passes out in 

[ 171 J 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

part for proof upon the moral sensibilities and 
expectations of men; and the signs of judg- 
ment are in part among the moral instincts 
and anticipations of the soul. The hold of 
duty on us is a hold of judgment. The sense 
of shame in sin, and the sense of fear for sin, 
are shadows before of the coming judgment. 

The assertions of the Bible concerning a 
coming judgment are not bare unsupported 
assertions. They are in concurrence with the 
highest thoughts and the most sacred hopes 
of man. The great belief in God stands dis- 
tinctive and eminent concerning judgment. 
The Bible declares, and the mind of man 
agrees to the declaration, that a Being exists, 
of capacities in intelligence and power, and of 
qualities in moral nature and balance, which 
fit Him to be the Judge of men, and which 
make it certain that He will bring mankind 
into judgment. There is a moral Governor 
of the universe of men, wise, powerful, and 
just. In the exercise of these perfections He 
does govern men. This is the central fact of 
a moral sort within the creation. In a world 
occupied and governed by such a God, account 

[172] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

must be taken of the deeds and deserts of men. 
The throne of God is of strong necessity a 
throne of judgment. 

I have said that this is the central and dis- 
tinguishing fact of the creation. It is also the 
most glorious distinction the creation could 
bear. A Power of wisdom and righteousness 
prevails within it, and will finally bring its 
inhabitants to judgment. 

Much of the present darkness of the earth 
arises from some lack of present manifested 
judgment in it. Judgment is held back, and 
put off, and partly obscured. This is done 
for the growth of faith, and for the trial and 
forming of life. But it makes the present time 
often dark. How uneasy you are often your- 
selves because justice is not done, and because 
there is not enough of judgment in the world! 
One man gathers in good that does not belong 
to him; another fails to gain that which is 
his right. Discredit falls where it is not de- 
served ; praise is missed by those that earn it. 
How disturbed the sight or the feeling of these 
things often makes you! How men all about 
you are tossed by these discomforts, because 

[173] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

there is not enough of present judgment on 
men ! How tyrannies still prevail in lands too 
dark and lands too wide, while the innocent 
and the poor have no helper. How men have 
prayed for justice on the oppressor! 

This unrest of the earth as it is, is among 
the signs of the coming judgment. It might 
almost be said that the whole creation groans 
and travails in pain together until now in 
desire for a coming judgment. How dark 
the earth would be with no hope of judgment, 
and with all present thoughts of judgment 
ended! How could men live together forever 
in a world in which it should never be known 
whether any weight of wisdom and power lay 
on the side of things good? What heavings 
and tossings and swingings backward and for- 
ward there would be in such a human society, 
without order or hope ! What upsetment and 
darkness there would be, and endless unrest in 
every soul! Would you like yourself to live 
in such a world? Would you like to be, if you 
could, where there was no God, no force of 
justice, no judgment? Would you enjoy such 
unrests of thought, such unsettlements of prin- 

[174] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

ciple, such ungovernments of all desires, with 
your fellow-men, and with yourself? Would 
you like to make your home in such a land of 
looseness and eternal disorder, beyond all 
range of the governing righteousness of God? 
— Possibly sometimes you might. I know how 
in hours of weakness we may be ready to put 
away our highest thoughts and to let go at 
once the restraints and hopes of holiness and 
eternal justice. But the highest thoughts of 
men are most safe, most wholesome, most 
true. It is from off the summits of life that 
you see most clearly the things around you or 
before you. In stronger and better hours, and 
on all the higher lands of life, you will see the 
light from the throne of judgment, great and 
white, and you will rejoice that a just God 
bears rule over man. 

These things are strong in the hearts of men, 
— the binding force of duty, the proper and 
certain control of justice on human life. They 
are fixed within us. They cannot be removed. 
We cannot think — we can scarcely think, when 
the better lights of moral reason fall upon us 
— that we shall not be judged. As moral 

[176] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

beings, rational, hopeful and immortal, our 
minds are set toward the judgment day, and 
they cannot be taken from it. These are the 
signs and proofs of coming judgment in the 
word of God, and in the heart of man. 

Now we have reached, third, the fitness of 
God to be the Judge of men. The judgment 
of God on men will be a good quality of judg- 
ment. This is indeed the very substance of 
our thought of God as the Governor of men. 
He is a Being competent to the work, and 
qualified for it. The fitness of God to judge 
men appears at once in all the great partic- 
ulars of judgment. 

(1) He has full knowledge of us, and of 
whatever has to do with our life and charac- 
ter. He knows our original endowments, our 
strength or weakness of nature, whether of 
mind or body. He is acquainted with our 
place in life, our training, the circumstances of 
every sort that are about us, all influences of 
every kind bearing upon us for good or evil. 
He understands what our opportunities have 
been, what hindrances have been in our way, 
what purposes we have had, and what efforts 

[176] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

we have made, whether they have succeeded 
or not. He knows all our thoughts "afar off," 
and in minute and unfailing exactness. Noth- 
ing that has ever concerned us or that has had 
any bearing on the moral results of our lives 
is hidden from Him, or is in any way obscure 
with Him. And He has the same knowledge 
concerning every human being. All the mate- 
rials of judgment are in His possession. 

This is very unlike what is apt to be found 
with judges and juries in men's courts of 
justice. Here the crimes of men are often 
hard to be uncovered. The men that commit 
them will not tell of them, or they will tell 
falsely. No one else may have seen them; 
or no one that will tell the truth. Circum- 
stances may be deceptive or confusing. Skil- 
ful lawyers may try to make them more so. 
Truth comes often only slowly to light, if at 
all. It is hard many times to convict the 
guilty, or to clear the innocent. What a 
change it would make, while one of these slow 
processes of human justice was going forward, 
or while perhaps it was being twisted back- 
ward — if there might pass through the court 

[177] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

room, open to the eyes of judge and jury, 
one flash of the omniscience of God! 

Besides, man-made laws do not deal much 
with the desires and inward thoughts of men, 
and the courts of men do not even try usually 
to find out what men think or wish, or what 
they really are in themselves, beneath what 
they may say or do. They are concerned 
mostly with outward doings. These are but 
shallow judgments. Trial before God will be 
different. God is fitted, in clear, illuminating 
knowledge, to be the Judge of men. 

(2) The power of God fits Him also for 
this work of judgment. He can bring the 
witnesses together, if they are wanted, and all 
the criminals. He will not be moved by fears 
or apprehensions when any great man or any 
popular man, or any unpopular man, may 
stand before Him, — or any crowds of men. 
He will not fail of power to cause every man 
to be fully judged, and to carry out whatever 
may be the awards of His judgment concern- 
ing any. A great part of the uneasy longing 
for justice and judgment among men that I 
have spoken of, has been due to the frequent 

[178] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

joining of power with wickedness, so that it 
has gone hard with righteous men that were 
not strong. That uneasiness will cease at the 
judgment seat of God. 

We find a great habit among men, when 
they practice or cherish any evil thing, of 
entrenching themselves behind some pride of 
strength, by possession or place or name or 
power. They are not concerned as to what 
is exactly right. They are not even much 
concerned if in some things they should stand 
opposed to the justice of God. This too will 
pass away at the judgment day. The almight- 
iness of the Governor of men is much spoken 
of in the Bible. It is not frequently enough 
in our thoughts. It will come, on that day, 
into all the thoughts of men. God is able to 
judge men. He has the power that fits Him 
to do it. 

(3) God is also just. This is another great 
particular of fitness for the work of judgment. 
It is the most high and clear of all. God is 
a wholly fair and impartial and righteous 
judge of men. The statements of the Bible 
here are most strong. God can "do no in- 

[179] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

iquity." "His ways are just and true." "The 
works of His hands are verity and judgment." 
"Justice and judgment are the habitation of 
His throne." His dominion and empire rest in 
righteousness and justice. He is in one breath, 
"the Hving and true God." 

This is the glory and crown of the Governor 
of men. This His diadem of righteousness 
will shine on Him on the great judgment day; 
and He will then appoint to every man the 
last awards of life wholly as is most just and 
right and good. There have been many august 
judges presiding over human courts whose 
decisions have shocked and confused the minds 
of men, and tormented the earth. There have 
been also many, and a growing number and 
proportion, happily, in these later times, who 
have judged in equity. No fairer sight is seen 
than the administration of justice at the hands 
of a capable and just man, who can and will 
unravel the webs of wickedness and set the 
lines of truth in light. 

It is told of Sir Matthew Hale, that he once 
went, clad as a miller, and unrecognized, into 
a court where some cause of which he had heard 

[180] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

was to be tried, and he managed (as things 
then were) to get a place on the jury; there 
he observed the bribing of the jury and the 
judge, and watched the falsifications and the 
perversions of justice that went on, until at a 
critical stage of the trial he declared himself 
the Lord Chief Justice of England, and bade 
the astonished and confounded judge to come 
down from his place, while he went up upon 
the bench, and himself tried the case again. 
It is a satisfying story to the heart of man, 
and it befits a shining name. But even among 
such men there is none who is always and 
wholly wise and just and fair. But the justice 
of God is steady and even, firm and sure and 

perfect. 

Thus God is fitted to be the Judge of men. 
He has knowledge, power and righteousness 
answerable to the office and the occasion. The 
quality of judgment as He gives it, will be 
perfect. 

This brings us, fourth, to the results of the 
judgment of God on men. We should not 
think of the judgment altogether as a single 
day, once to come and then to pass by. It is 

[181] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

rather a stage of life upon which we shall enter 
and in which we shall continue always after. 
That which marks it most distinctly is our 
coining more manifestly into the presence of 
God, and standing more openly before Him. 
The judgment day is the manifestation of God 
to man, and the manifestation of man before 
God. It is the bringing of man to know that 
he is seen of God. And it is also the causing 
of man to be seen by his fellow-men, and by 
all other beings in the creation, in the light 
from God that falls then upon him, and to 
whatever degree it shall please God to appoint 
that any man should be so known of others. 

At some time, somewhere beyond the earth, 
and connected, no doubt, with great changes 
in the natural being and outward surroundings 
of human life, such an appearance of man 
before the judgment seat of God will take 
place. There will be a peculiar "day" at the 
first opening of that stage of light, that will 
be the time of the first full disclosures of char- 
acter — or the beginnings of disclosures — and 
the time of the first full sense of the judgment 
from God. In that manner it is "the day of 

[ 182 ] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

judgment," clear and memorable, whenever 
it is. But disclosure and judgment will not 
end when they begin ; they will go on forever. 
We may have thus our best view of the results 
of judgment by thinking of men, by thinking 
of ourselves, as set to abide forever in the clear 
presence of God. We are in His presence 
now ; but we scarcely know it. We shall know 
and feel it then — forever. 

First of all, there must take place on the 
judgment day a mighty change of thought 
and feeling with respect to the place and 
weight of God Himself within His own crea- 
tion. With those that have not minded much 
in this world concerning God, the revelation 
must be swift and heavy. The standards of 
life with such men, in the present time, are 
fashioned and set too far in their own selfish 
and vain imaginations, and in the fancies of 
other men like themselves ; they have thought 
of little else. But, behold, with the dawning 
judgment day, the brightening splendors of 
the life of God ! Behold the far-overmatching 
and unremovable worth and glory of the 
Maker and King of men! behold, pure and 

[183] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

full above the midday sun. His discernment, 
His righteousness and grace illuminating the 
wide horizon, and penetrating to the center 
of every soul! 

Whatever else may be, there must come then 
to pass in the minds of many men a sudden 
and mighty shifting in all the standards of 
character, and in all the weights and measures 
of personal reputation and worth. And when 
these standards and weights of judgment are 
thus passed over on the side with God, they 
will remain there steadily forever. Never 
afterward will there be any thought or mis- 
giving in the mind or heart of any man, that 
justice, truth, love and goodness are not prop- 
erly and certainly in authority and supremacy 
in all the world. Never afterward will any- 
thing be thought well of that is in any wise 
contrary to the truth and goodness that are 
seen in God. There will be no reputation and 
no character, and no thought of any, in any 
unlikeness to God. The weight and com- 
manding glory of the righteousness of God 
will never afterwards pass away from before 
the minds of men. This visible and clear 

[184] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

establishment forever of the controlling stand- 
ards of life as in the righteousness and good- 
ness of God, and the settlement of them thus 
fully in the minds of men, will be, I think, the 
chief results of the judgment day. 

The retributions of the coming endless life 
are doubtless chiefly caused by the adjustments 
that men will make in their own thoughts 
respecting their fellow-men and respecting 
themselves in the light of these standards of 
life that are seen to be with God. Men will 
be divided — they would divide themselves if 
they were not divided — by the distinctions 
between righteousness and the love of sin, 
which are the distinctions between likeness to 
God and unlikeness to Him. The division will 
be exact and correct, because the truth will 
be exactly known. Beyond the judgment 
pretences and hypocrisies will have no more 
use. Character will appear as it is, and repu- 
tation and honor will go fittingly with it, — 
and so will shame. In all that state, after the 
judgment day, wicked men will receive no 
more respect than belongs with wickedness. 
In that state, too, forever, all just and good 

[186] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

men will be seen in the honor that is appro- 
priate to them. Many of those unknown or 
obscure on earth will be exalted. Numbers of 
men and women will go up from humble homes 
and from lowly and patient occupations, to 
sit on high at the right hand of God. 

The Lord Himself, when He was on earth, 
and before the time of the great judgment day, 
often set back the proud and set forward the 
lowly. He said of the poor widow who cast 
into the treasury the two mites that were all 
her living, "Behold she has done more than 
all the rest;" and her memorial, without her 
name, has filled the world. The names in 
goodly number, of kindred love and faith and 
kindred deeds, are written with God, and they 
will have their endless remembrance and glory, 
beyond the judgment day. It was in the fore- 
sight of that great day of everlasting knowl- 
edge that the Lord declared that many of the 
first should be last, and many of the last should 
be first. But, first or last, every appointment 
of that illustrious day, touching the reputation 
or the destiny of man, will be ordered in the 
controlling righteousness of God, and will 

[186] 



RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT 

command the reasonable approval and con- 
currence of every human soul. 

Thus by fitting and glorious necessity, and 
to solemn, lofty and endless purpose, we shall 
all appear before the judgment seat of God. 
It is time that you should make wise and holy 
settlements of character in preparation for the 
judgment day. The view to be taken of this 
great event, is serious and impressive, but it 
is not dark. All that is wholesome for you in 
action and character in the present time, all 
that can make you cheerful and balanced and 
lovely and strong in life, will be approved in 
the judgment day. Nothing will be con- 
demned under the judgment light but the 
things you should never wish to choose. Make 
haste to gather within yourself the gold that 
will bear the trial — the goodness that you 
would be willing yourself to keep. Cast out 
the deeds and thoughts of darkness. Cast out 
whatever you would not yourself wish to see 
within yourself when that day begins. 

I have set the great judgment day a little, 
dimly, before you. Consider it. Awake and 
look upon it. Do not let its breaking light 

1187] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

surprise you when it comes. Walk in the 
light that now shines about you, that the ever- 
lasting judgment morning may not shortly 
steal as a thief upon you. You have heard of 
the coming judgment. You have seen it, a 
little, afar off. But listen within yourself. 
Lift up your eyes and behold. You are now 
in the presence of God. You are known of 
God. Have knowledge yourself now of God. 
Know yourself as you are known by Him. 
Transform yourself today into that frame of 
life and heart and being which you are ready 
to bear and keep before this judgment seat of 
God. Pray that there may be created quickly 
within you a clean heart, and that a right spirit 
may be renewed and upheld within you. 



[188] 



IX 

EASILY BESETTING SINS 



IX 



EASILY BESETTING SINS 

Hebrews 12:1. Let us lay aside every weight, and 
the sin that doth so easily beset us. 

In the Revised Version, the marginal ren- 
dering is, "the sin which doth closely cling to 
us." Under whichever form of words, the 
meaning is that we must be careful to free 
ourselves from the sins by which we are easily 
entangled, or those into which we are most 
readily led. 

One main purpose of our coming together 
in these Sabbath assemblies is to learn how we 
may be delivered from our sins. In so far as 
this goes, the business of the preacher is, not 
to gratify the tastes of those to whom he 
speaks, but to help them if he can, in this get- 
ting free from sin. It is natural that a min- 
ister should wish to speak in such a way as to 
please his hearers, and I suppose it is in a 
manner suitable. But it is more important 
that he should speak in a way to do them good. 

[191] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

Having this in mind, some one has said that 
it is better that a congregation should go away, 
not saying — if they might say it — "How 
beautifully the preacher spoke today," — but 
saying, or thinking, "What care we must take 
concerning our hearts and our lives, that we 
may keep the law of God." It is for such 
profiting in our souls that we are here in the 
house of God. 

As to the casting off of our sins, it is plain 
that it is the worst sins that we should be the 
most concerned about. It is those that bring 
us most into danger that we should try most 
to escape from. If we should let our worst 
sins alone, it might be but a small matter that 
we had gotten rid of a number of others. If 
you were alone in a forest, and were to be 
attacked at the same time by a mosquito and 
by a wild-cat, it would be no great matter to 
you that you were unable to kill the mosquito, 
if you were straightway after to be torn in 
pieces by the wild-cat. The worst foe in such 
a case is the one to be first looked after. 

The worst sins for us may not always be 
those that are in themselves the worst. That 

[192] 



EASILY BESETTING SINS 

is, they may not be those that are in themselves 
the very most base and violent sins. Our most 
dangerous sins are those to which we om^selves 
are most inchned. They are the sins that most 
easily beset us. Probably we are not tempted 
to commit murder or midnight robbery. But 
if less abominable sins cling closely to us, and 
we do not cast them off, they may destroy our 
souls. I do not mean to say that sins in small 
matters are as bad as sins in great matters. 
To have a single bad habit, or several bad 
habits, in things of shght importance, is not 
so bad as to be committing public crimes, or 
to be leading an utterly irreligious and profli- 
gate life. There are degrees of sin and of 
sinfulness. A man who means to obey God 
is a better man, though some sins may stick 
upon him, than a man who thinks nothing of 
God, and cares nothing for duty. But the 
man who means to obey God, ought to mean 
to do it in all things. He should be careful 
that he does. He should not be wilhng to 
leave any particular sins undisturbed and keep- 
ing their hold upon him. If he does so leave 
them, in so far he is not obedient to God. And 

[193] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

those particular sins, if he loves them, and if 
that is why he keeps on in them, may destroy 
his soul. The sins to which we are inclined 
are dangerous, whether they are great or small. 
Besides, the man who seems to be committing 
only small sins may be kept back from com- 
mitting great open sins by no love for God, 
or for goodness, but only by fear of exposure 
and public shame. 

Besides, too, we must not in our thoughts 
separate sins too far from one another, as if 
they were so many distinct things; and as if 
one might be chosen by itself, and all the rest 
cast off. Sin is, in the substance of it, one 
thing, however it shows itself; and one sin, 
chosen and followed, might make a sinful per- 
son. The text, if we look narrowly at it, 
does not speak of sins that easily beset us, 
but of sin that does it, as if sin were really 
all one thing, and as if what we were to guard 
against were not so much separate, easily 
besetting sins, but rather the easily besetting 
and clinging force or quality of all sin. So 
truly it is. 

Sin might thus be thought of as an evil beast 

[194 J 



EASILY BESETTING SINS 

or monster, strong and cunning to catch us, 
and using many ways to do it. If the beast 
does catch and hold us, it may make no dif- 
ference in the end whether he holds us by 
main force of his jaws and both his paws, or by 
the firm grasp of a single claw. If he holds 
us, that is enough. So the hold of what we 
call a single sin might keep us in the power of 
sin. It does not matter for the form of words 
or the figure of speech, it is this easily besetting 
and holding or clinging quahty of sins, or sin, 
that we must guard against. 

And further, we must consider that though 
some sins or sin remaining and chnging upon 
us may not, in the mercy of God, utterly ruin 
our souls, yet still our character will be marred 
by it, and the force of our lives for good will 
be greatly lessened. It is these remaining sins 
of Christian men and women that most of all 
hold back the progress of the Lord's cause in 
the world. 

And now while we attend for a little time 
to some further thoughts about besetting sins, 
I hope you will not be much busied, any of 
you, in applying what is said to the other 

[195] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

persons. That would be of no use, either to 
you or to them. But if there is anything that 
any of you can apply to yourselves, that may 
do some good. 

We may look at some of the reasons 
why sin easily besets us; or why particular 
sins do. 

One reason is that sin is deceitful or blind- 
ing in its own nature. It looks better than 
it is. We are easily misled as to the badness 
of it, and the harm it may do us. We are 
warned in the Scriptures. The Apostle Paul 
writes to the Ephesians, to "put off concern- 
ing the former conversation" or manner of 
life, "the old man which is corrupt according 
to the deceitful lusts." He writes to the Thes- 
salonians of the "deceivableness of unright- 
eousness in them that perish" — a dreadful 
phrase. In the epistle to the Hebrews believ- 
ers are warned to exhort one another daily 
lest any of them should be hardened through 
"the deceitfulness of sin." This deceitfulness 
of sin shows itself most with those sins to which 
for any reason we are the most inclined. It 
is paii; of the besetting quality of sin that it 

[196] 



EASILY BESETTING SINS 

misleads us as to what it really is, and as to 
the mischief that is really in it. 

In thinking of this subject, the question has 
arisen in my mind, whether or not most per- 
sons know what their besetting sins are. I 
am not altogether sure what the answer should 
be. But I think that most people do in fact 
know; — that is, the most of those who have 
much thought in any way about the matter of 
their sins. I think there is usually some knowl- 
edge as to where one's greatest besetments are. 
I think the truth is that there is a tendency 
to make the sin which is known to be cherished 
to appear to be less of a sin than it really is. 
We are not ignorant of the fact that at a 
certain point there is a liability with us to do 
some wrong thing; but we let ourselves be 
blinded concerning it, coming to think that 
this wrong thing may not after all be a very 
bad thing. 

Look now closely upon yourself to see if 
there is any such point of danger with you. 
See if there are wrong habits or tendencies 
with yourself that do not give you so much 
concern, or trouble you so much as they ought 

[197] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

to. If your mind goes now to such a point, 
there is where sin is besetting you. It is there 
that you should begin now in making moral 
changes upon yourself. Begin there, where 
you are most in danger. 

Another reason for the besetting power of 
sin may often be found in peculiarities of nat- 
ural disposition. Our dispositions are inher- 
ited. They came down upon us from our 
fathers and mothers, or from those before them 
from whom our natural lives have sprung. 
We have in this way native inclinations or 
aptitudes, or repugnances of various sorts, and 
these may have a strong influence upon us. 
A person may be natui'ally lively and hopeful, 
or cautious and timid. He may be quick in 
temper or slow, sunny or sullen. Some are 
naturally generous, some are jealous. Some 
are close and covetous, some are cunning and 
ready to be false as by an inborn instinct. So 
there are great differences as to the ease with 
which different persons are led into many right 
or wrong ways of life. Now we are not re- 
sponsible for our dispositions to begin with. 
They came upon us without any act of ours. 

[198] 



EASILY BESETTING SINS 

We could not help their being what they were. 
But we are responsible for what we come to be 
as we grow up in hfe, whatever our disposi- 
tions were to begin with. Some people make 
a great mistake at this point. They excuse 
themselves in wrong conduct on the ground 
that they are disposed that way and cannot 
be expected to do differently. So a woman 
who is given to bluntness and roughness of 
speech will often say, "That is my way. I 
cannot help it. I must speak right out. That 
is the way I was made." But why must she 
speak right out harshly, when it is wrong to 
do it? She must not speak out. She must 
stop her quick and heedless speech, and she 
must learn to speak considerately and prop- 
erly. She must; she can. None of you are 
slaves altogether to your natural dispositions. 
You have reason, you have opportunity to 
observe and reflect; you have conscience, you 
have heard the word of God. You know what 
is right. You have freewill, the power to 
choose and act. If your disposition is not 
right, you must change it. This is one of the 
first things for you to see to. If there is any- 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

thing wrong in your natural making up, you 
had better alter it. You had better make your- 
self what you ought to be. It is a dreadful 
thing to be going on made up wrong in your- 
self, and not trying to change it. And if you 
have sins besetting you and sticking closely 
to you in that way, it is the first duty and hope 
of your life to be casting them oJ0F. 

There is another occasion of evil besetments, 
that is very curious in its nature, and that is 
not often enough thought of. There is a pecul- 
iar yoking together of things good and bad 
with us that is ready to lead us into trouble. 
Certain good qualities of mind or heart pass 
easily over into certain correlative bad quali- 
ties, and the good slips off into evil. Thus 
the great good trait of generosity is sometimes 
joined with a slackness of thought concerning 
promises and obligations, and the free-hearted 
man may not be careful to pay his just debts. 
Good nature in general tends somewhat to 
become easy-going and irresponsible. The 
genial and companionable man may often have 
a dislike for steady and hard work, and some- 
times his good cheer slumps into looseness and 

[200] 



EASILY BESETTING SINS 

profligacy. Intemperate men are often com- 
panionable men. The good qualities of indus- 
try and thriftiness run over into avarice and 
sordid lusts. Prudence grinds away into 
penuriousness and hard-heartedness. Supe- 
rior business capacity may bring liability to 
severity of judgment respecting those less 
competent or less fortunate. Clearness of 
mind and the capital power of accurate 
discernment may cut its way easily into the 
critical and cavilling habit, and even into self- 
conceit. Mental caution is near to moral cow- 
ardice. Truthfulness and frankness may lie 
close to bluntness and heedlessness. Moral 
firmness and fixed integrity of purpose pass 
over into an unaccommodating and difficult 
spirit, hard to please. And even a temper 
quiet and retiring may become, not far off, 
sensitive, self-conscious and obstinate. How 
not uncommon it is for modest and retiring 
people to be very set. There are many such 
pairs or couplings together of dispositions 
good and bad, the bad so connected with the 
good that one is easily led off upon it, unless 
be is always careful. It is as if there were 

[201] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

a pair of horses harnessed together, and one 
of the pair were always ready to pull off out 
of the road. The driver would need to keep 
his eye always on the horses. 

So are we beset. If we are sympathetic, 
we may also be passionate, and apt to get 
angry before we know it. It is a good thing 
to be quick in sympathy, and it is a bad thing 
to be quick in anger. If we are conscientious 
and scrupulous, we may be shortly censorious, 
and may become judges of evil thoughts 
toward others. It is a good thing to be con- 
scientious, and a bad thing to be censorious. 
These besetments are real, and the danger 
great. We need to be careful every day and 
hour about the kindred sins that lie close to 
the best things within us. 

Another reason for the power of particular 
sins upon us may lie in the nature of our occu- 
pations. The sharp competitions of business 
sometimes make men hard-hearted, or they 
may lead to deceitfulness and falsehood. The 
Lord has spoken of His word as sometimes 
choked by the deceitfulness of riches. The 
deceitfulness of riches beguiles many who are 

[202] 



EASILY BESETTING SINS 

never rich. So the farmer, with one of the 
best of all occupations, may grow narrow in 
mind, living upon his fields and busied with 
the growth of his own things, until he ceases 
to look out far from himself, and he finds it 
hard even on the Sabbath day not to be think- 
ing mostly of his crops and his cattle. 

Then our companionships may lead us into 
evil. Many people, especially young people, 
are inclined to do what they see others doing. 
Thus a young man who forms the drinking 
habit, begins commonly by being with those 
that drink. He has no particular liking him- 
self for strong drinks, but he sees others taking 
them. This is no very good reason for put- 
ting one's self under the power of such an 
appetite. Thus people go away with crowds 
of others on the Sabbath day. I say nothing 
now as to how the day may best be kept. Let 
every man consider and be persuaded in his 
own mind. But no bad way of life becomes 
a safe and good way merely by its being made 
a broad way, and by the walking and riding 
in it of many men. 

Then the force of habit may become a source 

[ 203 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

of danger. If for any cause we have done 
some wrong thing and have repeated it, this 
power of habit is ready to come in and fix the 
evil on us. The judgment and conscience, 
often overcome or sHghted at that point, be- 
come weakened or bhnded at that spot. The 
rehsh for the sinful indulgence increases; and 
the bodily being itself, in those parts that run 
most close to the mind or soul, takes on a set- 
ness toward that sin. Such habitual sins stick 
hard upon us. The body itself is a companion 
to the soul that needs to be looked on with 
carefulness, as well as with thankfulness and 
hope. 

There is another dangerous besetment 
through the unUke conditions, or the changing 
conditions of human life. This is not often 
enough thought of. The dangers of different 
periods of hfe are not the same; but there 
are dangers in every period. Each variety 
of exposure needs to be guarded against as 
it comes in its turn upon us. Watchfulness 
against the follies of childhood or youth will 
not serve to guard us as against the follies of 
middle life, or of old age. The conditions may 

[ 204 ] 



EASILY BESETTING SINS 

be quite reversed. The young person may 
need to be warned against impulsiveness, 
against quickness or hotness of feeling or 
speech. The older person may need to watch 
against dulness or coldness of feeling. The 
boy needs to learn the value of money; the 
older man needs to know that money may be 
of no value unless it is well spent. The heart 
of the child may be too soft, the heart of the 
man too hard. 

In such ways does sin beset us ; by its own 
deceitfulness, by the peculiarities of natural 
dispositions with ourselves, or by peculiar ar- 
rangements or couplings of dispositions; by 
our occupations; by our companionships; by 
the power of habit on us, and by the changing 
conditions of the various periods of human 
life. It is not hkely that there is any one of 
you here that has not some such special beset- 
ment. If there were any one of you that 
thought that he was in no such danger, I should 
fear that his danger was great. It is well that 
we should be charitable concerning the sins of 
others. It is not well that we should be care- 
less concerning our own sins, or should be 

[205] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

ready to find excuses for them. Sins or sinful 
tendencies with us are not things to be let 
alone, or easily put up with. They are to be 
resisted, and quickly cut off. If they are not 
cut off quickly, they may grow too strong ever 
to be cut off. You know the remedies. You 
know the Helper of your soul. You know 
the grace of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, 
who offers you at once pardon for sin and help 
out of its power. I trust that you have wel- 
comed Him, as your Friend and the Keeper 
of your soul. It is time that it should be done. 
If you are following Him, you will hear His 
voice, calling on you to watch and pray. He 
does not call you to perpetual fearfulness, or 
to the bondage of distressing anxieties and 
misgivings. He calls on you to pray that you 
may walk in faith and courage, in freedom 
and in hope. Listen to His voice. Listen to 
His voice until you go in at the doors of 
heaven. 



[206] 



X 

MEMORY IN MAN 



X 

MEMORY IN MAN 

Psalm 1^3 : 5. I remember the days of old. 

Remembrance is one of the most simple 
of all the acts or conditions of life, and yet 
one of the most wonderful. We carry along 
constantly through our lives some part of all 
that we pass through. It is in some ways a 
shadowy past; and in some ways it is most 
real. The occasions of our lives do not them- 
selves ever return. The stream of life flows 
by us, and does not stop or run back again. 
Our opportunities do not remain or return. 
There is nothing that is gone more hopelessly 
than yesterday, or the last hour or minute. 
But in another way it is not so. We can look 
back upon the last hour, or upon yesterday, 
and seem to see them both. The very feehngs 
that we had then sometimes come back and 
become real to us again. And the things that 
made us glad or sorry yesterday, may be pleas- 
ing or displeasing to us today. But sometimes 

[209] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

our feelings are very different from what they 
were at that past time. We may be sorry we 
did what we once took pleasure in doing, or 
painfulness may change to pleasure. But 
however it may be as to our feelings, whether 
they are the same or different, we can seem 
to see the past occasion, and can think plainly 
of ourselves as there. 

So we have these memory pictures of the 
past, partly real and partly unreal, as pictures 
are. We carry them all along with us, and 
can look upon them whenever we please. 
Some of them we are forced to look upon 
sometimes when we would rather not see them. 
Most of the pictures keep well. Some fade 
out partly, or even wholly. But these are 
apt to be the things that were only told to us, 
or things in which we were not much inter- 
ested. The main things that we have had much 
to do with are not often lost out of mind. 
Whether anything is really lost out of all 
remembrance is not certain. Sometimes things 
flash out into sight plainly that had seemed 
to be wholly forgotten. It is as if among 
all these pictures, some were to get mislaid, 

[210] 



MEMORY IN MAN 

or covered up, so that they are not found 
always when we look for them. Or they may 
be so covered with dust that it is not easy to 
tell what they are. But perhaps none of the 
pictures are lost. How clearly we can look 
upon the path of life by which we have come, 
many of us through long stretches of years, 
back to youth and the days of early childhood ! 
Memory is not the only thing that we have 
of the past or can bring out of the past. Most 
of our present life has grown out of past 
things and doings. So we have habits, which 
are the effects on us of what we have often 
done, and we have capacities, or aptitudes and 
powers of skill which come of training or prac- 
tice in past time, and we have a character, of 
whatever sort it is, that has been fashioned and 
built up out of our former purposes and do- 
ings. But these capacities or habits, or traits 
of character are wrought within us in such a 
way that they have their effect upon us usually 
without our thinking at all of the past occur- 
rences and practices out of which they grew. 
Memory brings to us in a different way a cer- 
tain conscious knowledge of the past, as if we 

[211] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

could look back and see the sources out of 
which our present characters have sprung. If 
any of you have fallen into bad ways of living, 
probably you can think now of just the time 
when you began to go in those ways. Perhaps 
you can see where you took the very first step. 
You can probably remember how you thought 
at particular times that it would be better for 
you not to do such and such things; and yet 
you yielded to some evil desire and did them. 
All of you can remember mistakes you have 
made, which you have been sorry for, and 
which have perhaps continued to affect you 
ever since. So also you can think of times, 
no doubt, when you have resisted some evil 
and turned from it. You can remember when 
you did some thing, or entered on some right 
purpose of life with a strong effort, and can 
think how you kept upon it with patience. 
Thus your memory connects your present self 
with your past life and doings, and helps to 
make your character personal to yourself. It 
helps you to trace yourself and see yourself 
in all the way in which you have come to be 
what you are. Indeed if you had no memory 

[212] 



MEMORY IN MAN 

you could have no knowledge of yourself as 
having any continuous personal life. The 
lamp of memory lights up the past behind 
you, and helps you to see in part where you 
have come from and what you are. 

This light of memory on past events, and 
on ourselves, we cannot entirely shut off, even 
if we try to. We can help our memory by 
attending carefully to things that we wish to 
be able afterward to recall; and we can 
strengthen it by use and practice. Or we may 
neglect it, and go on without taking much 
thought about what is past. But still with the 
least care that we might give, we shall remem- 
ber very many things. Sometimes people try 
to forget their past lives, but it is not a very 
easy thing to do. And it would often happen 
that the more one tried to forget, the more 
clear the memory would be. We never can 
shut up behind us the past out of which we 
have come. We never can be sure either that 
anything is forgotten because we may not for 
a long while have thought much about it. 
Something may make it come up very clearly 
again. Old things grow fresh, and scarcely 

[213] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

anything seems to be completely lost out of 
our minds. 

Many things are carried on in the memories 
of many men. No one life is alone in the 
world. If one man's memory fails in some 
particular, some other person may bring that 
thing to his mind. So any of you may be 
reminded by some one else of things that 
seemed long forgotten. Perhaps it was a 
pleasant thing that you have been made thus 
to think of; perhaps it was something you 
would have been glad never to have remem- 
bered again. No doubt this has happened to 
you often. It may happen as to anything 
good or bad that you ever said or did. 

The act of remembrance with us is very 
likely to be joined with some exercise of con- 
sideration and reflection upon what is remem- 
bered. We do not stop with barely calling the 
thing to mind ; but we often make some men- 
tal observation and pronounce some sort of 
judgment upon it. The best opportunity for 
reflection upon an action is often some time 
after the thing is donei Our minds are then 
in a more considerate temper. The impulses 

[214] 



MEMORY IN MAN 

or desires that pushed or pulled us one way 
or another at first, pass away or grow less 
strong and eager. Recollection is a more sober 
thing. It is more reflective in its nature. It 
is more likely to be true and fair and just. 
Thoughts of what is right especially are more 
apt to come into our minds when we remem- 
ber the doings of the past. Conscience comes 
into exercise and reason speaks to us of what 
should or should not have been done. 

The moral turn of remembrance is a great 
feature of human life. Each one of you can 
observe how in your own experience you con- 
tinually pass judgment upon what you have 
done when you remember it. You do not stop 
with remembering the thing. You approve or 
disapprove of it. And you praise or condemn 
yourself for doing it. The youngest of you 
children know how it is that what you have 
done at home or at school often looks different 
to you as you think of it afterward; and you 
are glad or sorry about it in a way different 
from what you felt when you were doing it. 
All of you who are older have had a great deal 
of such experience. You pronounce judgment 

[215] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

upon yourselves, in the way of praise or blame, 
by this act of remembrance, many times every 
day you live. Or if you do not, it is probably 
because your mind and conscience are not so 
much alive upon such matters as they ought 
to be. 

This connection of memory with the making 
of moral judgments on action and Hfe, has 
much to do with the appointments of the gov- 
ernment of God respecting us. Our Uves are 
moral in remembrance. Moral responsibilities 
from all the past lie upon us. The moral con- 
cerns of our youth are not ended in manhood 
or old age. There is no reason to think that 
they will ever end. It is true that our present 
exercise of memory depends upon the action 
of bodily agencies connected with the mind. 
When we sleep we forget, and we might think 
that when the body dies, we should forget for- 
ever, and the mind itself would perish. But 
this would be to give up the hope of immor- 
tality, which we do not wish to do, and must 
not do. We do not know much ourselves of 
where the powers of hfe are really seated. 
This connection of memory in man with moral 

[216] 



MEMORY IN MAN 

judgments is in itself suggestive of continuing 
and lasting moral ends for man. Human 
remembrance itself is in part a kind of lifting 
of human life out of the midst of things that 
are only present and temporal, and a raising 
of it up among things that seem to be stead- 
fast and eternal. Human recollection joins 
also closely with human foresight. While our 
minds are going back to the past, they are 
ready to go also most easily, almost with the 
same stroke of thought, onward to the future. 
And as moral reflection and moral judgment 
go readily with all remembrance, so moral 
expectations incline to go with all foresights. 
When we cast our thoughts onward to the 
future, moral concerns still press upon us. 
All these things are signs upon our present 
being that we are, as the Bible declares, the 
children of an inmiortal life. They make it 
easy for us to believe that though our bodies 
in the earthly form they wear are frail and 
perishable, our souls are conjoined with some 
more steadfast being, and are appointed to 
endure in the midst of everlasting remem- 
brances and eternal expectations. All our 

[217] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

better hopes, all our brighter thoughts, incline 
us to such a belief. 

In such lights our human lives seem great 
and precious. Human remembrance is a sign 
of greatness. It is a hold we have upon all 
that with which we have ever been concerned; 
as if the rational soul of man might put a 
species of immortality on all that it had ever 
touched. Such memory is distinctive of man, 
and is a part of the greatness of life. Other 
things in the soul of man fit with these, and 
belong with greatness. 

Man is great; the Bible does not represent 
man as small, except in comparison with all the 
greatness of God. It does not say that man's 
life is poor. It says, "What shall a man give 
in exchange for his soul" his life? It does 
not say that man is insignificant. It says that 
he is sinful, and has need to be turned from 
sin. It does not say that the things that con- 
cern the Kfe of man are of small account. It 
says that they are of immeasiu'able importance 
and of endless worth. It bids us take care 
respecting these thiags, since they will keep 
their hold upon us and affect us forever. It 

[218] 



MEMORY IN MAN 

is not religion that will make you small, it is 
unbelief, or worldliness, or indifference to the 
things of your soul. Because your life is seri- 
ous, it is great. And because it is great it is 
serious. All great things are serious. Great 
capacities, great opportunities, great recollec- 
tions, great moral and rational issues of life, 
— such things make life serious. 

I hope none of you are sorry your lives are 
serious. Would you rather have them trifling 
and empty? Would you rather be frivolous 
and small, instead of being serious and great? 
But you cannot help it. If you should not 
choose to be serious, the greatness of a serious 
life is put upon you. You are shut into the 
human state. You cannot go back out of it, 
and close its doors against you. You will be 
always a man, whatever sort of a man you may 
be. You will always look back on your past 
life, as a man looks on hfe. You will have 
human remembrances, human judgments on 
yourself, human reflections and human expec- 
tations. You will know forever that you have 
lived and are Uving under the just law of God. 
I hope you are glad now to know that you are 

[219] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

under the law of God. I hope you will never 
have reason to be utterly ashamed when you 
think of it. 

But I think you all know that the sense of 
shame as to wrong things we have done is very 
hard to be gotten rid of. When we think of 
such things, long after, we are ashamed. 
Sometimes it seems as if this sense of self- 
reproach in remembrance of the bad things 
we have done was more tenacious than the 
sense of satisfaction in what good things we 
have done. I do not know but it is. When 
we think of anything we have done right, it 
seems only natural and suitable that we should 
have done that; and there may be no great 
merit in it. But to do wrong is needless and 
unfit and disgraceful. Sinfulness seems clear 
and flat disgrace. I do not think it can ever 
be an easy thing to get rid of the sense of the 
meanness that must have been in us in the 
doing of the wrong things we have done in our 
past lives. I think we come to need the help 
of God, to cover up our sins from ourselves 
as well as from Him. Our sins are in our 
book of remembrance, as they are in His. 

[220] 



MEMORY IN MAN 

They need to be blotted out — or in some way 
written over, in our book, and in His. 

These are some of the things that belong 
with our human remembrance. I think they 
are fitted to make us careful as to the life we 
lead. The things you do go into yourself, and 
stay with you. You always have them to 
remember. Do you not wish to be careful 
about the things that you put into your own 
mind, to stay there forever? Is it not an 
important matter how you make up this store 
of remembrance, which you are always to keep 
within yourself? Do you not think it is a 
practical matter what you give yourself to 
remember? What are the things that you are 
concerned about now? If you are a child, 
perhaps you wish to have holidays at school, 
and plays at home; and there is no harm in 
these, in their way. If you are a young per- 
son, perhaps you wish to have pleasant com- 
pany, and perhaps you are thinking and 
Hoping that you may have an agreeable wife 
or a good husband; and these things are well 
enough, and quite important to think of. If 
you are an older man or woman, perhaps you 

[221] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

are wishing that you had money, and are work- 
ing for it. Or you would like a better house, 
or more land, or a horse, or new furniture, or 
new clothes, or better food for yourselves or 
your children ; or perhaps you are considering 
how you can send your children to school a 
little longer, or perhaps you are wishing that 
you did not have to work so hard as you do, 
and are planning for more ease in life. These 
things in their way may be all more or less 
desirable. They will have something to do 
with your comfort for a few years. But what 
care are you taking for the memories of life 
that you are laying up to keep in your minds 
forever? Are you taking as much pains about 
the things that you are putting into your soul, 
to stay there, as you are for the things you 
keep outside of you for a little while? Sup- 
pose there were a man who had a hand-cart 
furnished him, and some money given him, and 
he was told that he might go along through 
the streets of a town, and purchase or gather 
in any way such things as he chose, and such 
as he could carry in his cart, and might have 
for his own all the things he thus carried. And 

[222] 



MEMORY IN MAN 

suppose that man should be very careful of 
the hand-cart — which would be all right — and 
should put it under some s%d every night, 
or whenever it rained, or when the dew fell, 
and should be always wiping off the mud and 
dust, and oiling the wheels of the cart, but 
should not take any pains at all to get things 
that were good for anything to put into that 
cart, but should fill it up with sticks and sods 
and common stones, so that when he got 
through he would have nothing that was worth 
anything in that cart? Suppose then he had 
to leave the cart, and carry on all the rest of 
his life in his hands the sticks and dust and 
bits of rubbish? How short of sight would 
that man be! You take care, it may be, of 
the hand-cart, the outward present life — ^what 
have you gained of your own in your soul? 



[223] 



XI 



THE TONGUE— "THE GLORY OF 
OUR FRAME" 



XI 

THE TONGUE— "THE GLORY OF 
OUR FRAME" 

Psalm 108:1. I will sing and give praise, even with 
my glory. 

A SOMEWHAT similar passage occurs in the 
sixteenth Psahn; "Therefore my heart is glad, 
and my glory rejoiceth." And again in the 
thirtieth; "That my glory may sing praise 
unto Thee and not be silent." In each of 
these cases the word "glory" refers to the 
organs of speech, or especially to the tongue, 
which has always been taken popularly as a 
chief representative of these organs. It is an 
expression made use of for the sake of variety, 
and in the spirit of poetry, and with the same 
meaning, for substance, as if the writer had 
said. My mouth, or lips, or tongue shall sing 
and give praise. The sense is therefore cor- 
rectly given by Watts in his version of the 
thirtieth Psalm, when he says : 

"My tongue, the glory of my frame, 
Shall ne'er be silent of Thy name." 

[227] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

There is however a distinctive force in these 
passages, from the use of this particular title; 
and there is a suggestiveness in this very 
term "glory" as applied to the tongue, or 
organs of speech. 

Its capacity for the uses of speech is a pecul- 
iar glory of the human frame. This capacity 
is due chiefly to the structure of the parts per- 
taining to the throat, and the action of the 
tongue and lips is less essential, though very 
important. But the lips and tongue, being 
forward and open to observation, have taken 
to themselves the most distinction as agents 
in speech. It matters little for the division of 
the credit among the members of the body. 
The great thing is that with man the body is 
so formed that it can be made to speak. Some 
others indeed of the animal tribes are able to 
utter articulate sounds, in imitation of the 
human voice; though there are but few that 
can, and these do it imperfectly. There is 
no other animal, I suppose, that is equipped, 
in a merely bodily point of view, nearly 
as well for the uses of speech as man 
is. In this respect, therefore, his tongue 

[228] 



THE TONGUE 

with its associated organs, is a glory of his 
frame. 

The fact however that some other animals 
are able, more or less adequately, to make the 
same sounds that man does in speech, may 
show us that there is something else to be 
thought of in this connection besides bodily 
structure. At the same time this faculty of 
speech, however it comes to be exercised, lies, 
in a natural or physical point of view, at the 
foundation, in a large degree, of the distinctive 
progress that man has made above his fellows 
of the other animal tribes. 

A very large portion of the distinctive 
knowledge that man has is what he has ac- 
quired in some way from other men, either 
those living with him or those that have lived 
before him. And the most of what he acquires 
in this way comes through speech oral or writ- 
ten. But animals learn very little in this 
manner. I think that they do not learn much 
in any way from other animals. The most of 
what any animal knows, he knows either by 
instinct, or by his own observations, or his own 
reflections. Instinct is knowledge or aptitude 

[229] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

transmitted naturally and unconsciously from 
one's progenitors. It is of vast and primary 
importance as to all animal life; and the ap- 
pointment of this possession affords a striking 
proof of the wisdom and goodness of the 
Author of all these living things. The dis- 
cernments of instinct are always more swift 
and often more subtle than the penetrations 
of reason. But instinct goes only to certain 
fixed points, and has to do mainly with the 
essential necessities of physical life. And in 
any case it is not an instrument of conscious 
and rational acquisition or progress. Beyond 
what is instinctive the animal learns whatever 
he comes to know mostly by his own observa- 
tions and experiences, and by such reflections 
as he is able to make upon them. He gets 
little help from parents, companions or teach- 
ers. Thus I suppose the young bird or chicken 
is but little wiser for anything his mother 
teaches, though she is a most active and care- 
ful mother after her fashion. If one of the 
brood were taken away and put wholly by 
himself, with a chance only to live, I suppose 
he would grow up nearly as well informed and 

[230] 



THE TONGUE 

capable a bird or fowl as any of the others that 
were left with their mother, and with one an- 
other. But if the same thing were done with 
a child of a hmnan family, in any civilized 
land, — if that child were separated from 
hmnan companionship, it would drop back 
out of all measurement from the others in the 
family from which it was taken. It would 
fall far beneath the state even of any conmion 
savage ; for the savage has learned much from 
his fellow-men. This single thing, instruction 
by human companionship, makes up a large 
part of all the intellectual difference between 
man and the birds and beasts. And of human 
companionship, speech is the chief element. 

The isolation and solitariness of the animal 
tribes, as compared with ours, is almost com- 
plete. They can make calls respecting food, 
indicating either the possession or the want of 
it. They can give signs of danger. They can 
make sounds expressive of satisfaction or com- 
posure, of affection, of joy or grief, and these 
are understood by others of their kind. They 
are appreciative of one another, in many cases, 
in their companionship together, and we may 

[231] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

be glad to think that their social enjoyments 
are not small. But their speech at the widest 
is within narrow bounds. Their utterances 
for the most part, are monotonous and vague, 
and they are altogether inadequate to the con- 
veyance of variety or delicacy of sentiment and 
feeling. And beyond this, as to thought, in 
the full sense of that word, — for the results of 
comparison and reflection, for general conclu- 
sions drawn from the experiences and obser- 
vations of life, for the products of contempla- 
tion upon one's own being, upon the outward 
world or upon universal existence — for all this 
the beast or bird has no tongue or speech. 
Within this range of mental action, his 
thoughts, whatever they are, must remain 
mostly, if not wholly, within himself. His 
stores of learning and reflection were all begun 
by him, and they all end with himself. If 
there be a sheep or horse or elephant of 
capacity somewhat unusual for his race, and 
of studious and reflective habits, though he 
lays up a considerable store of intelligence in 
his life-time, as I think sometimes happens, 
yet he is not able to teach any of his compan- 

[232] 



THE TONGUE 

ions or his children. When he dies all his 
wisdom will die with him. No other sheep or 
horse or elephant will carry any of his learning 
or discretion along into the next generation. 
We may wonder whether any such studious 
and reflective beast has ever any concern in 
his own mind with regard to his inability to 
make known his wisdom; and whether he has 
any desires that chafe against the narrow 
bounds of his physical capacity. We cannot 
be sure that he has not. But yet such desires 
could hardly fashion themselves into anything 
of definiteness and continued clearness. The 
very lack of the power of speech itself would 
prevent it. Speech and language have much 
to do with all thinking; so that thoughts are 
not easily framed or set in any order without 
words. Words are the packages in which 
thoughts are contained. They are the meas- 
ures, the baskets, the cups, for the holding of 
thought, and thought without words runs away 
and is lost, like water spilled upon the ground. 
For this cause alone the contemplations of the 
beast must be of a vague kind only, being 
probably little more than a mass of impres- 

[233] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

sions and impulses and unassorted memories 
of former experiences. The boundaries of 
animal being in this direction are thus prob- 
ably so close and solid that there is no looking 
beyond them, and no thought therefore, of any 
confinement — much as one who had no eye for 
color would have no natural sense of depriva- 
tion in not seeing colors. 

It may then be true that the beasts have 
no unfulfilled desires and longings reaching 
far beyond their capacities, into that which is 
moral and ideal, rational and eternal, as has 
man. Reason in its own nature is universal, 
though the personal powers of rational man 
are limited. Still there shine in upon man 
glimmering rays of light from distant orbs 
and from immeasurable spaces beyond himself. 
Man is thus not wholly at home within the 
narrow bounds of his earthly being. And in 
this present unrest which he feels there may 
be found some promise of enlargement in an- 
other and endless life. We do not know that 
the confinement is felt, or the implied promise 
discerned by the animal tribes beneath us. It 
is most natural to think that the desires and 

[234] 



THE TONGUE 

expectations of the beast or bird are in tune 
with the framing of his physical life, and that 
his intellectual state corresponds throughout 
to the measure of limitation which the inca- 
pacity for speech implies or suggests. 

No one should wish to belittle the capacities 
of the inferior animals, which are indeed in 
many ways wonderful. As to language, some 
of them readily learn the meaning of many 
terms of human speech. They come to know 
that certain words and phrases are associated 
with particular motions, either their own or 
those of men; and they understand in many 
things what they are expected to do. But this 
does not of necessity imply anything more 
than the memory of the connection between 
these particular words and these actions. It 
is a thing far removed from the wide gift of 
rational language as it is found with man. 
Even such beasts, or especially such birds as 
are able to utter articulate sounds, do not 
appear to take up that faculty and turn it 
to any practical rational use. The parrot is 
not, so far as I know, more capable or more 
wise for his talking. 

[235] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

But however we may regard it, and what- 
ever we may think of as possible with any of 
the animals, it is altogether certain that the 
actual power of speech stands in a most sig- 
nificant manner at the boundaries of reason, 
as between man and the brute creation. 
Speech is the instrument of thought. It is 
needful to all clear intelligence. In the ab- 
sence of it, the powers of genuine reason are 
undeveloped, and in some respects wholly 
wanting. 

Speech is a distinctive instrument or mark 
of rationality in maij. For a deep reason 
therefore, the bodily organs that are employed 
in speech may be called "the glory of our 
frame." They are the signs of the rational 
eminence of man. They are associated with 
all his earthly progress, and with all his im- 
mortal hopes. As a speaking creature, he 
belongs in the realm of reason and has about 
him immeasiu'able opportunities and pros- 
pects, and heavenly companionships. He may 
most appropriately praise God with his 
tongue — his glory — since it is as a speaking 
creature that he has spiritual fellowship with 

[ 236 ] 



THE TONGUE 

his Maker, and belongs, morally and ration- 
ally, in the household of God. 

It is because man has a tongue that he has 
traditions, counsels from his fathers, proverbs, 
histories, recorded memories of the past, warn- 
ings, inspirations, all treasured knowledge in 
science, of the outer world, — all knowledge of 
social life and government, of man in his rela- 
tion to his fellows, — laws, ordered and pro- 
claimed commands embodying civil wisdom 
and moral obligation, — poetries, pictures of 
life in its heightened lines, — melodies and 
rhythmic harmonies in word and tone, linking 
the soul of man with the creation around him, 
— reasonings, sifted and certain conclusions or 
thoughtful hopes of man concerning himself, 
the world he lives in, the Power above him, 
and the destinies awaiting him beyond the 
present time. All these, all consciously trans- 
mitted observations, reflections, imaginations, 
learnings and anticipations — all these are of 
the tongue of man. His speech stands at all 
the doorways of knowledge, of affection and 
of faith. By reason of his tongue, his speech, 
he enters into all the life of his fellow-men. 

[237] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

By his speech he hears the voice of God in 
providence, and comprehends the meaning 
of His works in nature. By his speech 
he receives the personal word of God in 
revelation and has set before him the great 
precepts and promises pertaining to ever- 
lasting life. And by his speech he knows 
himself to be and indeed is in the image 
of God. His tongue is thus the glory of 
his frame, and his rational speech is the glory 
of his life. Great praise is thus fittingly put 
in the Scripture upon the tongue and the 
organs of speech. "The mouth of the just 
bringeth forth wisdom." It is a "well of life." 
The tongue is a "tree of life," and is as "choice 
silver." 

The tongue of man has therefore, mani- 
festly, the highest uses. It is the instrument 
of communication between the spiritual being 
of man and all other spiritual being. It opens 
the way between man and man and between 
man and God. 

Some practical reflections may be briefly 
made upon this theme. It is peculiarly impor- 
tant and needful that this tongue of ours 

[238] 



THE TONGUE 

should be rightly managed. It must be put 
to good uses and to no other. It is a great 
and honorable thing, and must be greatly and 
worthily dealt by. The more honorable any 
faculty is, the more forcible is the obligation 
to use it with honor. Slighter things may be 
less cared for, but your tongue is no small 
thing. Your tongue matters more than does 
your finger or your foot. Your tongue be- 
longs to your rational soul. It is that by 
which chiefi^y you have communication with 
the souls of other men. It is that largely by 
which your thoughts and desires are carried 
up to God. You must be mindful of what 
it carries to your fellow-men and of what it 
takes up to God. You do not wish to abandon 
your highest powers and let them run to waste. 
You must take care of your tongue, your 
speech, or you will lose the best part of your 
life. Your tongue is so near your heart, yom' 
soul, that your care of it is like the care of 
your soul, your life itself. You must take 
care of your tongue. 

I shall not take up much time now in laying 
down any particular rules to be followed in 

[239] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

the managing of the tongue. I do not sup- 
pose your care for your tongue needs to be 
formal and pottering. You need not be al- 
ways weighing every word you speak, and 
trying to be sober and grave and wise every 
minute. That is not in nature, nor in the best 
wisdom either. Lightness and playfulness 
have their place. I am inclined to think there 
is a place for inattentive or easy-going talk, 
that signifies little or nothing. Life is not 
meant to be always tense and strained towards 
its ends. But your life must have its ends, 
and you must keep it on the main right lines. 
So you should make your speech stead- 
ily truthful, sensible, — prevailingly sensible — 
cheerful, hopeful, trustful, kindly and helpful. 
And you should keep it clear of all opposite 
things, of all foolishness (preaching foolish- 
ness!) , of all profaneness, of all indecency and 
vulgarity, and of all approach to them, and 
of all envy, bitterness and hatefulness. 

These few words contain a great deal — 
steadily truthful, sensible, cheerful, hopeful, 
trustful, kindly and helpful. You see that 
there is a stress on steadiness and constancy 

[ 240 J 



THE TONGUE 

in these things. What was said just now 
about allowing sometimes a certain amount of 
carelessness and ease in talk, had reference to 
natural mental relaxations and spaces of play- 
fulness or rest. It was not meant that you 
should be forgetful ever of great fixed moral 
obligations. It belongs to the quality of all 
high Christian life, that it is always high, or 
tends always to be so. Our lives are spoiled 
too far by our fallings away too often, too 
easily, from our best purposes. We are too 
patient with ourselves in such fallings off. 
Everywhere Christians are needed that can be 
depended upon to keep the high path of faith 
and duty, always. It is needful that you 
should yourself be such a person as that — 
keeping steadily the high road. It would be 
a small thing in the line of goodness if you 
should be truthful a considerable part of the 
time, and not always. You need to be a per- 
son sure to speak the truth — ^if you speak at 
all. You are not a truthful person unless it 
is so. It would not come to much if you were 
only often cheerful and trustful in your tem- 
per of life, as your words show it, — you need 

[241] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

to have this color of Christian trust shining 
on you, and shining from you right along, day 
and night. So as to kindness, your words 
should be always kindly. They should never 
be bitter or hateful. You can be surely, con- 
stantly, unfailingly kind in what you say. Be 
sure you keep your mark high in all these 
things touching on the moral tone of your life, 
as your speech shows it. 

It may not be the easiest thing to control 
your tongue in all these matters. But it is 
the highest thing. And is it not that at which 
you are aiming? It is a high thing that you 
have a tongue to control. You are set in a 
lofty place as a creature with this gift of 
rational speech, lifting you up above every 
other order of occupant of the globe, and set- 
ting you within sight of God. Can you not 
be willing to be careful of your speech? 

And now you may see that if you should 
fail in this matter of your tongue, your speech, 
the failure would be a great one. This follows 
from all our previous considerations. Speech 
is a great distinctive sign of man. It stands 
by the borders of reason and humanity. It 

I 242 J 



THE TONGUE 

marks you as within the bounds of things 
moral — the possibility of things holy and 
divine. It is a dark thing to turn from so 
much of good and change it to evil. Your 
tongue is the glory of your frame, — ^would 
you make it a tool of falsehood or foulness, 
or hatred, or of aimless and endless idleness 
and frivolity of speech? Would God hold you 
guiltless for that? Would you think yourself 
that you were guiltless? The endowment is 
one of singular honor; you must see that the 
abusing of it is of singular shame. 

So the Bible, over against the choice words 
in which it describes a pure and fitting speech 
has a corresponding darkness and severity of 
language respecting a false and ill-mannered 
tongue. It is a sharp sword. It is a bow 
drawn. It is an arrow. It is a serpent. The 
poison of asps is on it. It is q-n unruly evil, 
full of deadly poison. It is a fire. It is a 
world of iniquity. It defiles the whole body. 
It sets on fire the course of nature. It is itself 
set on fire of hell. It is a dreadful picture. 
It is a dreadful thing that is pictured. Be- 
neath an open or a fair face may lurk this 

[ 243 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

unruly evil, this tongue of a snake, this flame 
out of hell. 

I hope there is no one here with such a 
tongue. If there is a single one such, you who 
are in such a case, with such a tongue, must 
see what to do. Put out the fire. Take off the 
poison. Make haste, repent and pray. We 
must put better thoughts before us. Let us 
turn our hves, our lips, to higher uses. Let 
us learn the fitting speech of reason, of faith 
and love, and everlasting life. Let us speak 
to one another in truth and kindness and help- 
fulness. Let us talk together as becomes the 
children of God, the followers of Christ and 
the heirs of heaven. Let us praise God with 
our tongues. 



[244] 



XII 

THOUGHTS OF PERSONAL 
RESPONSIBILITY 



XII 

THOUGHTS OF PERSONAL 
RESPONSIBILITY * 

Psalm 1:3. And he shall he like a tree planted hy 
the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his 
season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever 
he doeth shall prosper. 

Matthew 5: ^8. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your 
Father which is in heaven is perfect. 

The materials and objects of the natural 
world, within which we belong, are sometimes 
spoken of as arranged in three divisions which 
are called the "mineral, vegetable and animal 
kingdoms." They are "kingdoms" indeed, 
though no such special thought may have 
given them their name, in that the mighty 
power of nature and of God has sway every- 
where upon them and within them. The stone 

and the tree are alike subjected to the force 
of gravity and to the control of chemical and 

other affinities or repugnancies that lay hold 

*A Sermon preached by Dr. Rice in his former parish, 
just before the arrival of a new pastor. 

[ 247 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

irresistibly upon every particle of their sub- 
stance. But in some respects the tree seems 
to have powers of motion or of growth of its 
own, as the stone does not: the force of life, 
unknown as to what it is, belongs to the tree, 
and not to the stone. The stone does not feel, 
as we suppose, the shower or the sunshine. 
The tree answers to them in freshening beauty 
and in growth. With an animal, life has a 
wider range; and the bird directs its flight 
among the trees by a choice of its own. The 
bird or the horse can be tamed and made to 
follow its owner's call, as the tree cannot. 
With man the range of life is still more wide 
and high. He can consider himself, and the 
things becoming to him, as the bird and the 
horse can do but dimly, if at all. He can listen 
a little to the voice of nature and of God, and 
can gather something of purposes above him- 
self as worthy and needful to be chosen and 
followed. His life rises within the bounds of 
that which is reasonable and moral; and he 
can understand that there is a God, whose 
image he is made to bear, and whose perfec- 
tions he ought to consider and to copy. 

[ 248 ] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

The government of God is adjusted differ- 
ently to these differing orders of being and of 
hfe. The stone He fashions in its crystal 
shapes, and moves, it may be, by powers di- 
rectly from Himself. The tree He plants 
and sustains in a life that shapes itself, in part, 
by forces within itself. Man He upholds 
directly in natural life, but leads to the befit- 
ting forms and results of life by appeals to 
that reason and that sense of duty which have 
their home and their seat of power within the 
soul of man. 

When a tree has begun to grow after its 
kind the main thing for it is that it should be 
set in a good place. The force of this figure 
in the first Psalm is most distinctly seen in 
dry lands, as in Syria, or in some parts of our 
own Western country, where the trees line the 
river banks. It is the tree planted by the 
streams of water whose leaf does not wither, 
and that brings its fruit in its season. The 
place where a man lives is often very impor- 
tant ; but it is not so important altogther and 
always as the place of a tree is, for a man can 
often do something himself to make the place 

[249] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

where he is a good one to live in, and he ought 
to do it. 

So beyond anything else in the world, we men 
are answerable for the results of our own Uves. 
My purpose in this discourse is to set our re- 
sponsibility for our own lives a little before us. 

It is the purpose of our Sabbath assembling, 
and of all our religious observances and activ- 
ities to bring our lives into their proper frame 
before God and in the presence of one another. 
That is, to gain for ourselves a befitting himian 
character. In this high sense the Christian 
church is the school of manhood. 

The business of the Christian preacher is to 
help us, what he can, in gaining within our- 
selves these fitting results in our own personal 
character. This business of the preacher is 
sometimes quite misunderstood. He is looked 
upon as if he were some sort of a performer, 
and men watch to see how he does his part — 
Does he speak easily enough and rapidly 
enough? Are his words well chosen, and his 
illustrations apt? Are his gestures graceful? 
And is the preacher (in short,) a sufficiently 
bright and capable man? 

[ 250 ] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

Now these things are of some importance. 
It is proper at times to consider them. But 
they are not the main things. There might 
be a school teacher who was very quick and 
dexterous in putting mathematical figures and 
demonstrations upon the blackboard ; and his 
scholars might say — "How quick and bright he 
is!" It would be better for them to consider 
whether they had gotten their lesson in geom- 
etry. The good teacher is the teacher who 
helps his scholars to understand their lessons, 
and especially the good teacher is the one who 
teaches his scholars to love to study and to 
get their lessons. The good preacher is the 
preacher who helps his hearers to know how 
they ought to live in the presence of God and 
along with one another; and especially the 
good preacher is the one whose hearers them- 
selves learn to love to know and keep the law 
of God in all their hves. 

The place then to test a sermon is in your- 
self. To know whether you have heard a good 
sermon, look within yom^self and see if it is 
doing you good — or moving you toward it. 
If the sermon is not making you any better, 

[251] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

it is either a poor sermon or else you are mak- 
ing a poor use of it. These thoughts of per- 
sonal responsibility with each one of us for the 
right shaping of our own lives, as the children 
of God, are, I hope, to be constantly with us. 
I have in this connection a special motive in 
the personal concern which I feel for the wel- 
fare of this church, and of all its households. 
My long acquaintance with this church in 
former years may justify or at least excuse 
a certain personal coloring to be put upon 
what I say. I have known most of your house- 
holds from the days of your fathers and moth- 
ers — ^many of them from the days of their 
fathers and mothers. There is no family, sav- 
ing of such as have but lately come among us, 
with which I have not interesting and pleas- 
ing associations, bearing upon them the sacred- 
ness of long-continuing years. There is not a 
family nor a person of those that have been 
long here, for whom I do not have a genuine 
and sincere personal affection. It is a matter 
of regret to me that I see you now so seldom, 
and that the closeness of former knowledge is 
of necessity somewhat broken. 

[252] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

I have indeed long since given up, as it was 
my duty to do, all sense of official responsi- 
bility for the welfare of the church or of its 
individual members. But I cannot cast off, 
and you would not wish me to try to cast off, 
the deep sense of personal friendliness that I 
have for every one of you. And I shall not 
try either, to lay aside a certain feeling of 
personal concern for the welfare of you all, 
born of the associations and memories of the 
long past, and not likely to end, except with 
life itself. 

Personal responsibilities for the welfare of 
us all rest indeed upon every one of us. They 
have been assumed in a special and public 
manner by those of us who are members of 
the church, and who have covenanted to watch 
over one another ''in a spirit of meekness, love 
and tenderness." Those of you also who have 
not entered into these special engagements are 
not outside the great obligations that rest on 
every man living in a Christian social state, 
and on every man that knows, or that 
should know and love the God and Father 
of us all. 

[ 253 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

So are we here on this Sabbath day in the 
presence of God and of one another that we 
may make some gain for ourselves and for 
each other in the pm'pose and power of right 
living as the children of God. There is much 
to be done. Consider a little what thoughts 
should come into your minds in these hours of 
worship. You are here that you may put out 
of your mind and heart every form and shadow 
of evil ; that you may know how to cease for- 
ever from being envious or jealous of each 
other, or of any human being; that you may 
become kindly affectioned, altogether, toward 
one another, and toward everyone, every- 
where; that you may become quick, and not 
slow, in the movings of sympathy toward every 
one; that you may know how to be always 
just; that you may be faithful, beyond all 
chance of failure or f orgetfulness, to all obli- 
gations of every sort that you have assimied, 
or ever ought to assume. You are here that 
you may become unfailingly patient and 
unfailingly courageous, unfailingly firm and 
unfailingly gentle, according as the shifting 
winds of life may blow upon you. You are 

[254] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

here to become intelligent, to the full limit of 
your capacities, concerning the thoughts and 
ways of God. You are here to learn your 
own place in the midst of the works of God, 
whose workmanship in part you are. You 
are here to know how to open your mind to 
every ray of truth and your heart to every 
holy motive from God and man. You are 
here to offer true and spiritual worship to God 
who is Himself a Spirit, that you may learn 
His love, that you may accept His grace, and 
that you may enter if you can, into His im- 
mortality. It is enough to do. 

I can set the great truth but a little before 
you. It is needful rather for you to set it 
before yourself, and become accustomed to 
doing it. There is a constant danger of our 
becoming indifferent to those things which are 
our life. The tree that did not listen to the 
voice of God in the rain and the sunshine, 
in springtime and autumn, that tree would 
perish. 

I am setting these things before you, how- 
ever, not in warning, but chiefly in hope. It 
is not a grievance that we are expected to learn 

[255] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

and gain the powers and graces of the Chris- 
tian life. These things are our inheritance as 
the children of God. We rejoice in them. 

In so far as this church assists us in taking 
to ourselves these spiritual powers and gifts it 
is fulfilling the purpose for which it has been 
established and maintained. We believe that 
it has fulfilled this purpose in some fair degree 
for those who have been its members. We 
hope and expect that it will continue to do 
so. That is why we love the church. That 
is why we hope that it will live and prosper. 
That is why we wish that all our friends and 
neighbors would join us in it. It is because 
the church is an agency appointed of God to 
this very end, that it may bring the truths and 
motives of the Christian faith to bear upon us, 
in the cleansing of our hearts and lives of every 
evil thing, and in the fashioning of our souls 
after the mind of God. It is a lofty end. We 
hope and expect that it will be reached. 

Now we ought to keep this tone of hope. 
I think of it in connection with the coming of 
our new pastor. I sometimes hear one speak 
— or I hear that some one has spoken in this 

[256] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

way — "I pity the young man that is coming 
here; he is going to have a hard time." It 
is not said with an ill will. It is meant to be 
said in kindness. But it is not well said, and 
it is not true. This young man is not coming 
here to have a hard time. He is coming here 
to enjoy his life with us. He is coming here 
as one who loves God, and as one that will try 
to help us in all good things. We shall be glad 
to see him. We shall welcome him, and we 
shall help him as much as we can. I do not 
believe that there is a person in this assembly 
that has any different purpose or thought as 
to himself. There is not one here who does 
not mean to treat the new minister kindly, 
and to give him what help he can. 

This is what we should all expect of us all. 
Good expectations tend to fulfil themselves. 
Good thoughts about one another and good 
words tend to produce good. Discouraging 
thoughts, discouraging words about one an- 
other, or about our church or community, 
would tend to bring on the evil we may fear. 
Let us keep our discouragements, if we have 
any, within our own hearts. Let us speak only 

[257] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

words of hope and good cheer; so we shall 
have the more cheerful things to speak of. 

I am ready to go farther. I think it might 
be well if we were to leave off all disagreeable 
speaking of every sort. Now I know that this 
would be but a clumsy rule to follow. But a 
clumsy tool with a blunt edge has sometimes 
its advantages. You can all recognize a dis- 
agreeable thing that is to be done or said. 
You know it when you come near it. You 
could therefore stop it. The disagreeable 
word would not be spoken unawares — slipping 
by you, carrying perhaps much evil with it. 
Probably if we were all to determine that we 
would leave off the saying of any disagreeable 
thing whatsoever, we should omit the saying 
of some things that ought to be said, for there 
are times when unpleasant things need to be 
said or done. But there are not really in a 
Christian community like ours very many such 
times. And the good that we should miss by 
the total cutting off of all disagreeable speech 
would be overbalanced a hundred times by the 
good we should gain through the utter silenc- 
ing of every uncomfortable word. 

[ 258 ] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

I have no fondness for general pledges in 
matters of this kind. The well-trained Chris- 
tian man ought to be able to govern himself 
by himself, as the occasions come up. But 
we are not altogether sure about being well- 
trained Christian men. And I should not be 
sorry if every person in this assembly and in 
this parish, should now resolve that for a cer- 
tain time he would not speak one disagreeable 
word concerning any human being. I think we 
could get on for a day — or a week — or for a 
whole month. I think too that it would be, 
taken together, the best month we ever saw 
in this community. If our new pastor should 
come here while we were in such a state and 
should find that he could never hear, and that 
no one could ever hear one disagreeable word 
about anyone, he might think that by some 
misdirection he had gotten prematiu'ely into 
heaven, — What if we should prepare for him 
some such foretaste of heaven? 

It is true too, that while disagreeable words 
may sometimes have their use, yet they are 
very apt to pass into words of unkindness and 
real hatefulness. Unkindness and hatefulness 

[259] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

are wholly wicked. They are wicked every- 
where and always. They are directly contrary 
to the great law of love between man and 
man. 

Unkind words can never thus be properly 
spoken. Every person trying at all to be a 
Christian ought to put unkind speech with 
carefulness far away from his lips. So while 
disagreeableness is not necessarily unkindness, 
yet it is so apt to be near it that when we find 
ourselves ready to become disagreeable, we 
should be put on our guard lest we should 
become unkind and hateful. Disagreeableness 
is a kind of signal bell that rings to let us know 
that hatefulness is not far off. Altogether 
therefore, I think the experiment of putting 
all disagreeableness wholly away from among 
us would bring us very great satisfactions with 
but slight risks of any harm resulting. 

The fact is worthy of our consideration, too, 
that whenever in any place there are real evils 
to be resisted, the uttering of direct reproof 
is not commonly, and I think not ever, the 
most effective appliance. Such reproof is 
sometimes needed, but it is a secondary thing 

[260] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

at most. If reproof is put foremost it is apt 
to do more hurt than good. The chief remedy 
is in the positive forces of righteousness and 
grace set forth in the lives of men. 

It is said by scientific men, that the malig- 
nant microscopic germs which lie in wait for 
the poisoning of life, will perish, the most of 
them, withered and shorn of their venom, if 
a few hours of sunshine or even often a few 
flashes of clear sunlight, may fall upon them. 
The germs that breed moral pestilences in a 
community are best destroyed by the presence 
of men and women strong, steadfast and gra- 
cious, the light of whose lives shines through 
all the place, and cleanses its air. 

In the victorious wars of the kingdom of 
God the first direction of the manual of arms 
is this, — "Overcome evil with good." In so far 
therefore as we are able to meet and do 
meet these responsibilities which are upon us 
for continued personal growth in Christian 
strength and grace, we shall at the same time 
prepare the best welcome for our new pastor, 
and shall best promote the safety and well- 
being of the church. 

[261] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

The history of our church confirms such 
counsels and strengthens every such hope. 
This church has lived from the past by what- 
ever measure of grace it has had, and that 
measure through most of its life has not been 
small. I call to mind especially one man, of 
whom we like to think that he was the first 
real pastor of this church, though in the order 
of time he was not the first — as if those that 
had a name here before need not be coimted. 
He brought to the church the reviving powers 
of the Christian faith, as by the morning sun- 
rise after a night of storms. He put penitence 
for bitterness and strife. He put confession 
for suspicions. He put love in the place of 
fear, such love as casts out such fear. He set 
on foot the wholesome activities of a social 
state; — (he was "hurrying himself about a 
school-house.") . His own life ran close to the 
earth he lived on, and to the home he loved, 
and it bore the better for that the fragrance 
of heaven. His name is here upon this memo- 
rial window. But the real memorial of Joseph 
Green is in the peace of the long centuries that 
have followed. And his remembrance will 

[ 262 ] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

endure, we trust, through peaceful centuries 
yet to come. 

Even through the earlier troublous years 
men and women who could discern the light 
and hope of the Christian faith had not been 
altogether wanting here. Such men and 
women have never been lacking in these sur- 
rounding homes and in this house of prayer 
and worship. In the nineteenth year of my 
ministry I preached a sermon in which were 
given the names of fifty-six members of the 
church that had died since my coming. Little 
was said concerning them; with the larger 
part nothing was said. The purpose was not 
that they might be praised, but that they might 
be remembered. I think that there was no 
occasion of my pastorate, before or after, that 
made upon my own mind so deep an impres- 
sion. The names of later times might be added 
today. But it could not be done by me in 
every case with equal fulness of knowledge, 
and perhaps it could not be done by me now 
with equal propriety. But the record of this 
church of God has not been closed. The 
names of those that have passed before belong 

[ 263 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

in almost all our households. Many of the 
names have not yet gone far into the dimness 
of the past. Near at hand or far off, if the 
long roll could be set now visibly before us, 
even with whatever shadows or stains it might 
bear upon it, I am persuaded that it would 
fill all our minds, not alone with an awe, as 
if we were in the presence of eternal things, 
but more with an exhilaration, as if the glory 
of the immortal state were upon us, and as 
if we could behold for a moment the sacred 
march of the just in their perfection. 

And the walk of the members of this Chris- 
tian church, while they have been on the earth, 
with all its error and weakness, has been a walk 
in much of faith, and hope and love, toward 
the perfection of heaven. 

Wherefore seeing we are compassed about 
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay 
aside every weight, and the sin which does still 
so easily beset us, and let us run with patience 
and carefulness the race that is set before us; 
looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher 
of our faith, who for the joy that was set 
before Him endured the cross, despising the 

[ 264 ] 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

shame, and is set down at the right hand of 
the throne of God. 

The joy thus set before the Lord was in 
part the joy with which He should behold this 
very aim and effort of His followers, to lay 
aside in their earthly hves these hindering 
weights and these entangling sins, and to gain 
some likeness of spirit to Himself. Let us 
enlarge if we may, this joy which He may 
have in each one of us. 



[265] 



XIII 
A WISE HEART WITH AGE 



XIII 
A WISE HEART WITH AGE 

Psalm 90:12. So teach us to number our days that 
we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. 

In the Revised version, the last clause of 
the verse is rendered somewhat more exactly 
and pointedly, so that the passage reads — 
"So teach us to number our days that we may 
get us an heart of wisdom." Either way it is ^ 
a prayer that we may have such knowledge 
and such thoughts conqerning the duration of 
our present lives as shall help to make us wise. 
This prayer and purpose is appropriate to ^ 
every period of life, to the young as well as 
to the old. It is appropriate to the young ^/ 
because they may have the most of their pres- 
ent life before them, and it is better to know 
how it should be wisely and profitably spent 
before it is spent, rather than after it is spent. 
It is appropriate to the old, because they have W 
lived so long that they ought to know the worth 
of a wise heart, and because their experiences 

[269] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

and their opportunities for observation and 
reflection ought to be of use to them in get- 
ting such a heart for themselves. As between 
the young and the old, the topic of the right 
use of time may be of more direct service in 
the way of practice perhaps, to the young, 
while it may be more comforting and strength- 
ening in the way of reflection possibly, to the 
old. To all aUke, the keeping of the Sabbath 
day ought to help one forward in this pros- 
perous search for wisdom. 

The search is prosperous. It is a pleasing 
thought for us at the outset that there is this 
color of hopefulness cast over the natural ^ 
processes and the fitting results of human life. 
We are not born and set forth on this earthly 
life, that we should grow strong for a little, 
and then should grow weak and die. We are 
here to grow wise in heart and so to be ready ^ 
to live forever with God. We should be quick 
to see the hope and to lay hold upon it. 

Let us consider a little this going on into 
age and see what reflections should be made 
upon it. 

Our progress in years is something that we 

[270] 



A WISE HEART 

do not usually take much notice of for our- 
selves. Age comes stealthily upon us. We 
see its approach upon others more easily than 
upon ourselves. When after many years we 
meet those whom we had known in youth, we 
are surprised often at the change that we see 
in them, though we may not have been im- 
pressed in the same way by any changes in 
ourselves. We do not easily think of our- 
selves as old. (When I was asked, not many 
years ago, to take a special part in a service 
that was being arranged for the old, I did 
not exactly understand at first why any such 
proposal should be made to me I) We are apt 
to refer the signs of age to causes outside our- 
selves. The print in the papers and books 
we read is not so clear as it used to be. The 
light in the rooms is not so bright, or it does 
not fall properly upon our desks. The trouble 
is in something somewhere, not in us. 

Probably it is better for us that it should 
appear to us in this way, and that we should 
not be disposed to be always looking for signs 
of age with ourselves. But we should not wish 
to walk blindly. We need to know really 

[271] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

where we are; and if we are beginning to get ^ 
wise hearts, it does not hurt us at all to know it. 

The coming on of age is inevitable as well 
as stealthy. Nothing can stop our growing 
old, unless indeed we should die while we are 
young, — and the remedy would not be com- 
monly thought of as better than the disorder. 
Old age may be delayed somewhat by careful- 
ness and by cheerfulness; and it ought to be 
diligently put off in all such ways. But sooner 
or later it will come. 

Old age comes swiftly too, however it may xy- 
be put off in its coming. Everywhere among 
men the swiftness of the flight of time has been 
proverbial. The years are never long except 
to those that have seen but few of them. We 
can all remember that when we were children, 
the space seemed long from the winter to the 
spring, and from the spring to the ripening 
of the nuts and the snow-fall. From the an- 
nual Thanksgiving onward to the next, the 
distance was in prospect interminable. Now 
from midwinter to the melting of the snows 
and the peeping of the frogs is but a step; 
then we are at the memorial days, and the 

[272] 



A WISE HEART 

celebrations of May and July; and then the 
western summer twilights shorten, the skies 
are whiter at sunset, the frost cuts the flowers, 
and it is winter. Each year the quick pro- 
cession grows more swift. 

Observe also that this period of age to which 
we come so soon is relatively a long one. It 
makes perhaps a fourth of the full measure 
of life, — like the fourth season, the winter of 
the year. We have thus, as we may reckon 
it, twenty years of childhood and youth, the 
spring-time ; then twenty and twenty, or forty 
years, it may be, of maturity, from the early 
summer to the later autumn ; and then twenty 
years perhaps of winter. The closing period 
is long enough to make it desirable for us 
to know how we may best prepare for it, 
and how we may spend it properly and 
prosperously. 

It is worth while to consider too, that age 
has some natural resources of its own, and 
some peculiar opportunities and occasions of 
comfort and usefulness. We ought to make 
the best of old age ; and we should look most 
on its bright sides, and not on its darkness. 

[273] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

To look on the bright things of life may be 
a natural characteristic of youth ; but it ought 
to be a confirmed purpose, an acquisition and 
habit of age. 

Consider then our advantages in age. We 
know better than we did once how to shape 
ourselves to our place in life. If we can jump 
less than when we were boys, we are delivered 
from the boyish disposition to jimip; we do 
not wish to jump. If we can run less, we can 
sit still more. If we skip less nimbly, we step 
more carefully. If it hurts us more to fall, 
we take more pains to stand. If our senses 
are less acute, we are perhaps not less sensible. 
If we expect less, we know more. If we imag- 
ine less, we reflect more. If our fancy is less 
active, our understanding may be more solid. 
If we have fewer castles in the air, we dwell 
more contentedly in our houses upon the 
ground. If we look forward less, we look 
backward more ; but we need not look forward 
less. If we have fewer golden dreams in our 
heads, we have learned that there are better 
things to dream of or to have, than gold. If 
the flowers have fallen, the fruits may be in 

[274] 



A WISE HEART 

their places, — but the flowers need not wholly 
fall. If our visions of life are less gay, they 
may be more sober, — it is as good to be sober, 
in due measure, as to be gay. If we think less 
of the sunrise, we see more of the starlight. 
When we were young, we thought we were 
wise; now that we are old, we know that we 
are not wise, and herein we are much wiser 
than when we were young. When we were 
children, we wished that we were older; now 
that we are older, we are satisfied with the 
years to which we have already attained. In 
all its fulness of experience our age has its 
natural balancing compensations which are not 
small. We ought to be grateful for them. 
The stores of memory especially are rich. 
How poor the lives must be that do not have 
present within them the great days of the war 
for the Union! 

Besides all these natural resources of age 
we should consider that there are many mental 
and spiritual preparations that may be made 
for comfort and usefulness as our lives ad- 
vance. Many of the most pleasing natural 
qualities of youth may be replaced, or renewed 

[275] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

and filled out into corresponding spiritual 
fruits of maturer life. It is a great part of 
the work of a reasonable Christian life to be 
doing this very thing. 

Youth is naturally hopeful, confident, quick 
in sympathy, and disposed, in all the best Uves, 
to be generous, unselfish, high-minded and 
sincere. Which of these should not continue 
to old age? Which of them should not grow 
steady and strong and full? In youth itself, 
these natural lights of youth are often flicker- 
ing and changeable, with impulsive flashings 
and fadings. But all the practice of the ma- 
turing Christian life should go to make clear 
and steady these early graces and glories. 
They need to be fed from outside the springs 
of nature, with purpose and practice, and 
prayer and patience. 

This is a chief occupation of the Christian 
Ufe. We are set to catch these beauteous pat- 
terns of early hfe — ^ready of themselves to 
vanish — and fix them in the permanence of 
enduring character; as if the colors of the 
morning dew-drop might be fixed in lasting 
stone and worn as untarnishable gems forever. 

[ 276 ] 



A WISE HEART 

Left to itself the hopefulness of youth may 
be quickly clouded; its sympathies may lead 
into evil ways and dissipations, and its early 
generosity may be stifled and crowded out in 
the cares and pressures of business, leaving 
only dulness and selfishness of heart instead. 
Many lives are dull and moldy when they are 
not old in years. But you remember that faith, 
hope and love are in the Christian list of the 
things abiding. "Now abideth faith, hope and 
charity," the great saying runs. And why 
should they not abide? Which one of them 
should pass away, or be darkened with time? 
How should not the untried and natural hope- 
fulness of youth pass into the tested and elas- 
tic courage of enlarging experience? Thus 
Paul says, — "Patience worketh experience, 
and experience, hope." He puts hope after 
patience and experience, or after the state of 
being tried and proved. Hope is not at the be- 
ginning of the Christian life chiefly, but rather 
on toward the end. So with every natural and 
spiritual grace. And how should one not be 
hopeful in a world ordained and governed of 
God? How should one not be cheerful who 

[277] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

walks with God? How should one not have 
faith and love who knows God? And how 
should these not grow and brighten with grow- 
ing time and with clearer sight of God? Thus 
the path of the just — the wise in heart — is as 
the shining light, the spreading morning twi- 
light, that shines more and more unto the 
perfect day. 

This is the mind of the Author of life con- 
cerning man. He is able to bring it to pass. 
It does come to pass in many lives, whose grace 
and strength are fed from God, by means of 
human faith and carefulness. All the best 
things of youth are possible to be thus nour- 
ished and made imperishable. We must 
see to it for ourselves that this shining 
purpose of God does not fail with any one 
of us. 

We need not forget that age has its natural 
darkness. There is failing strength, and 
weariness, and it may be, painfulness. But 
these may be borne with patience, and with 
grace from God. If mental faculties fail in 
part, which may sometimes be most sad, yet 
this may be thought of as a lessening of the 

[278] 



A WISE HEART 

responsibilities of life, rather than as a dark- 
ening of its hopes. 

Some special counsels or cautions may here 
come to our minds with respect to the proper 
preparations for age. There are changing 
exposures with the changing periods of life. 
It is a mistake to think that any part of life 
is without its peculiar besetments. One such 
besetment of age is that it is liable to fall into 
this very snare, and to think that the time of 
danger is past. It will never be past until 
we are within the walls of heaven. Age has its 
own liabilities and exposures. Some of these 
are in directions contrary to the exposures of 
youth. There is the tendency to restrain and 
repress too far the quick motions of sympathy 
or of fellowship, and to become in all things 
calculating. Another tendency is that of re- 
ceiving attentions without special care to rec- 
ognize them, as if they came to us merely as 
our due. Another is the tendency to be drawn 
in too much upon one's self, and to go out too 
little in knowledge and sympathy into the lives 
of others. Thus arises the tendency to think 
too much and perhaps to talk too much of 

{279] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

one's self, or of what one has seen or done, 
which goes to make Hfe narrow and dry. All 
these mischiefs, and all others like them, should 
be guarded against as one grows old, and long 
before one begins to be old. 

Benevolent giving has a special use as a 
means of helping to keep up the breadth and 
unselfishness of hfe in old age. The love of 
money often holds on in age. It is apt, I 
think, to hold on rather stoutly. Perhaps it 
is fortunate that it does, for here, at least, by 
resolutely giving what one can of the money 
or possessions that one loves, a man can keep 
up and nourish the great vital Christian and 
human graces of love to God and love to man. 
We who are in years should watch for this 
necessity and opportunity with ourselves, and 
should not fail to practise some self-denial 
here at least where we may, so that we may 
make it sure that we do not lose our step in 
this Christian march to the end of life. Pos- 
sibly there should be arranged times of special 
giving when none but the old should be 
allowed to take part. 

Finally, we may consider that age should 

[280] 



A WISE HEART 

represent fitness of life for the highest life 
beyond. It may represent it. The life beyond 
is higher. It is close to the life of age. The 
life of age should be like it. I do not mean 
that old age should be mostly taken up with 
hopes as to the future, or with looking in any 
way chiefly to the future. The cares of life 
in every period lie mostly with hf e itself. The 
concerns of age are largely with the things 
present in age. But all life is near to the life 
beyond; and age most near. All the higher 
powers of life are the same on earth and in 
the coming stage beyond, and with these loftier 
and choicer powers we should have the most 
to do in every period of hfe. Old age is most 
near to the immortal state in which these quick- 
ening agencies have their fullest scope. It is 
the hope, the right and the duty of age, beyond 
anything besides of earthly life, to come most 
fully within the range and sweep of these ani- 
mating and cleansing powers of the imperish- 
able life. 

Age is rich and strong. The heaven itself 
is the home of the old. Most of its inhabitants 
are in far old age, much beyond the age of the 

[281] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

earth. The Ancient of Days is among them. 
As they number before Him their endless years 
they grow wise in heart with unhindered speed 
and with a gladness unknown on earth. The 
old with us are most near to heaven. Our 
likeness in mind and heart should be most close 
to these our kindred, who are but a little 
before us. 

The fitting preparations for age are thus w 
befitting to every period of life. They are 
becoming both to the earth and the heaven. 
They are needful for both. The young and 
those of middle age need to make these prep- 
arations with equal diligence. If you are not 
fit to be old, you are not fit for heaven, or for 
life. 

The sum of all preparation, the sum of all 
hope in every hour of life is in the knowledge 
of God. It is He with whom most of all we 
have to do, on earth and in heaven. His intel- 
ligence and His power surround us on every 
side. They penetrate all our life. His wisdom. 
His love and grace, animate and warm our 
souls. To know Him and Jesus Christ His 
Son, is eternal life. You are to be congratij*- 

I 282 ] 



A WISE HEART 

lated, in youth or age, who have begun to 
discern and appreciate the glory and warmth 
of the hfe of God. You are to be commis- 
erated, in age or youth, who do not know God. 
"He compasses our path and our lying down." 
"In Him we live and move and have our 
being." In Him are all fellowships, all hopes, 
all affections, all clear and endless friendships. 
This is the communion of the children of God. 

"One family we dwell in Him, 
One church, above, beneath, 
Though now divided by the stream. 
The narrow stream of death. 

"One army of the living God, 
To His command we bow; 
Part of the host have crossed the flood. 
And part are crossing now." 

Into this sacred fellowship with God, and 
with all trustful men, we ought now to be 
drawing most closely nigh. We turn to God 
with purpose and with grateful choice. Our 
hearts are not strong. He is strong, and 
clothed with life. We give Him blessing. 
We bring before Him praise and prayer. 
And may He forgive our sins, and redeera 
forever our souls. 

[283 1 



XIV 
THE STATE OF HEAVEN 



XIV 
THE STATE OF HEAVEN 

Colossians 1 : 5. For the hope which is laid up for 
you in heaven. 

The Apostle gave thanks to God as he 
thought of this hope as belonging to those to 
whom he wrote. Thanks are to be given to 
God in behalf of every Christian behever for 
the same thing. Every Christian gives thanks 
himself for this hope he has, laid up in heaven. 
There is a place above the earth, and a state 
beyond time, toward which believing men look 
forward, and to which they hope to come. 
This is distinctive of a Christian man, that he 
has a hope in heaven. 

Many things are told us in the Scriptures 
concerning heaven. Heaven is a place of end- 
less life. It is a state of immortality. Men 
that die and enter heaven, never die again. 
Death, their last enemy, has been destroyed. 
None of the pains connected with death will 
ever be felt in heaven. None of the griefs 

[ 287 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

that go along with it will ever be experienced. 
Thus it is written of the inhabitants of heaven 
that "God shall wipe away all tears from their 
eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither 
sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any 
more pain, for the former things are passed 
away." Heaven is a land of health. None 
of its inhabitants ever say, "I am sick." All 
that are there are always in their full natural 
strength. None are ever weak. None are ever 
in any way disabled. None are ever in want 
of any needful thing. "They shall not hunger 
nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite 
them." "Then the eyes of the blind shall be 
opened and the ears' of the deaf shall be un- 
stopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a 
hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing." It 
will be a state very unlike the present life, with 
its weakness and pain and briefness, and with 
death coming surely on it. 

Heaven is a place of perfect activity. This 
follows after the other. Where life does not 
wear out and die, where it is always healthful 
and strong, there activity can be endless and 
full. Immortality and perfect action belong 

[ 288 ] 



HEAVEN 

together. They are in substance the same. 
The dwellers in heaven are thus alive and in 
vigor forever. 

Heaven is a place of perfect rest. There 
remains a rest for the people of God. It is 
found in heaven. I shall speak further of the 
rest and the activity of heaven, keeping them 
both in our thoughts together. They are not 
contrary to each other. Where the powers of 
life are full and activity is free, there is no 
weariness, and one is at rest even in the midst 
of action. We do not know whether or not 
those that are in heaven are in fact always 
astir and moving, or busied in any occupation. 
They may have their spaces of actual rest as 
we do. Not much is told us in the Bible of 
such matters. We cannot tell very much by 
any use of our reason upon them. Many 
things indeed which have been always in the 
minds of Christian men concerning heaven are 
hard really to understand. Some that seem 
most precious and sure and sacred are most 
difficult to imagine. We have in the old 
hymns some pictures of the rest and calm of 
heaven. 

[289] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

"Thine earthly sabbaths^ Lord, we love. 
But there's a nobler rest above; 
So that our longing souls aspire 
With cheerful hope and strong desire. 

"No rude alarms of raging foes. 
No cares to break the long repose, 
No midnight shade, no clouded sun. 
But sacred, high, eternal noon. 

w vT ^ w w w w w 

"There faith lifts up her cheerful eye. 
To brighter prospects given. 
And views the tempest passing by. 
The evening shadows quickly fly. 
And all serene in heaven." 

******** 

"O'er all those wide extended plains 
Shines one eternal day; 
There God, the sun, forever reigns. 
And scatters night away." 

******** 

"I will sing you a song of that beautiful land. 
The far-away home of the soul. 
Where no storms ever beat on that glittering strand. 
While the years of eternity roll." 

******** 

"Oh, holy, heavenly home ! 
Oh rest eternal there ! 
When shall the exiles come. 
Where they cease from earthly care. 
In the new Jerusalem !" 

I 290 ] 



HEAVEN 

******** 

"We soon shall see the day, 
When all our toils shall cease ; 
When we shall cast our arms away. 
And dwell in endless peace." 

Such has ever been the constant Christian 
hope. The imagery of these hymns is noble 
and beautiful; but we realize, as we think 
upon it, that as exact descriptions of what 
we desire in the heavenly home, they do not 
entirely satisfy us. Do we really hope for 
an unbroken rest? Do we wish for a per- 
petual calm, either in the world about us, or 
in our souls within us, or in the social state 
in which we move ? Would we have no clouds 
upon the sky? No shadows on the earth? 
Would we rest in a land of "infinite day," 
beneath an "eternal noon?" Would we stay 
forever upon a "glittering strand," on which 
"no storms ever beat," a shore upon whose 
level edge the still blue ocean lay in unmoving, 
unending rest? Should we not be weary of 
endless and changeless calm, and the steady 
glitter on the sands? Would it not be better 
that there should be shadows on the waters? 
Should there not sometimes be storms and 

[291] . , 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

waves, and the darkness of night? And are 
we sure that we should wish to be clear forever 
from all the burdens and trials of life, for 
which the darkness and the storms of the out- 
ward world are made to stand? Should we 
wish that all our toils should utterly cease, and 
that we should enter upon a long repose which 
no care at all should ever break? Should there 
be no responsibilities resting on us? Would 
we have no concern respecting what we might 
do, and respecting the results of the things 
we planned and wrought for? Would we 
"cast our arms aside" and "dwell in endless 
peace," with no stir of any conflict ever again 
to move us? Would we have no more any 
of the changing emotions that come to us now 
from the pressing together of fears and hopes? 
Or as to our aflPections, are we even sure that 
all the tenderness of life would last if all the 
solicitudes of Kfe were to cease forever? We 
are indeed in many things the children of the 
earth and the present time. We have grown 
to live in the midst of its imcertain scenes and 
under its changing lights and shadows. We 
need now the shadows with the light. It is 

[292] 



HEAVEN 

hard for us to understand how such alteration 
might be made upon the present state as to 
remove all pains and all hardships, all fears 
and concerns, without bringing in also some 
dulness and staleness and sluggishness of life. 
But things that seem impossible to men may 
be possible with God. 

In part the present necessity for some pres- 
sure of labors and trials on us has to do with 
present sinfulness and with immaturity of life. 
We need chastenings to make our hearts bet- 
ter. We need discipline and training under 
trials to teach us to be patient and resolute 
in mind, and to make us capable in action. 
Few men would be prosperous now in mind 
and heart if they were prospered wholly in 
every outward thing. But this need not al- 
ways continue to be so. With grace enough 
and strength enough in the soul, prosperity 
might be borne ; and the uses of trouble might 
be dispensed with. Even as human life is seen 
in the present world, in so far as Christian 
character becomes fixed with power in lines 
of goodness, the force of pressure from fears 
and exigencies, or from any outward source, 

[293] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

comes to be less required. With all growth 
in strength come increasing enjoyments in 
appropriate action itself. With all growing 
goodness the satisfactions of goodness itself 
enlarge. The time may come with every man 
whose steps are tending upward, when the 
powers of life and love of themselves will draw 
him on to all holy and grateful action without 
the spur upon him of fears or disturbing anxi- 
eties. Thus the inhabitants of heaven may be 
eager in all their activities, though they are 
not tossed with selfish rivalries, nor drawn by 
narrow and chafing ambitions. They may be 
diligent, though they do not hunger nor thirst. 
They may be watchful against every evil, 
though the "rude alarms of raging foes" have 
ceased. They may be sensitive and tender in 
all the intercourse of friendship, though in 
their everlasting security they are not con- 
cerned lest friends should depart. The activ- 
ities of a holy and perfect state need not 
depend, as in many things they do with us, 
upon the opposition of evils and the incite- 
ments of dangers. 

Then too we may be sure that the heavenly 

[ 294 ] 



HEAVEN 

life will be fitted to all that is peculiar in the 
heavenly world. Our present lives are fitted 
to the world we live in. Our instincts and 
sentiments in many things are shaped to the 
earth. The sentiments of heaven will be 
shaped to the heaven. We are the children 
now of the earth and of time. In the heavenly 
land, if we reach it, we shall be the children 
of the resurrection and the sons of immor- 
tality. The requirements of a lofty state will 
be laid upon the congenial powers of a lofty 
life. The heaven will not be in anything 
strange or hard to its settled occupants. The 
earth in the few years we are here makes us 
at home upon it; much more will everlasting 
heaven. And if in some things we cannot now 
easily imagine in what manner our powers of 
being are to be adjusted to conditions far 
unlike the present, yet we need not doubt that 
it can be done. An immortal life very quickly 
makes itself grateful, as by the force of a 
mighty nature, to those that enter on it. The 
Founder of immortality, the Author Himself 
of hfe, is able to devise and ordain the appoint- 
ments of heaven in such a manner that its 

[295] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

state shall be suited to all the wholesome 
and rational necessities and desires of its 
inhabitants. 

This trust we have in God is indeed our 
only sure dependence with respect to the hap- 
piness and prosperity of heaven. We should 
be poorly able ourselves to lay out its condi- 
tions in prospect in a manner satisfactory even 
to our own thoughts. It is too far above us. 
But its adequate preparation and everlasting 
establishment are with God. He is able to 
make it a place of rest and of action, of un- 
broken security and endless life and prosperity 
together. And such it will be. This faith by 
which we join together our thoughts of God 
and our hopes respecting heaven is central in 
all things concerning heaven. 

Heaven is the place of the special presence 
and of the joyful sight and service of God. 
Even concerning the natural conditions of life 
of which we have been speaking, it seems to 
be suggested in the Bible that that which is 
high and wonderful in them stands in some 
manner connected with the pecuUar presence 
of God in heaven. We are told that the sun 

[296] 



HEAVEN 

and the heat will not smite on the dwellers 
in heaven, and then it is said concerning the 
heavenly city, that "It had no need of the sun 
to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten 
it." And when it is said again "There shall 
be no night there, and they need no candle, 
neither Ught of the sun," the reason is added 
again ; "For the Lord God giveth them light." 
The "eternal noon of heaven," its "day with- 
out night" is of God. Thus it does not smite 
with heat. It is the light, both softened and 
quickening, of an infinite life and love. The 
"pure river of the water of life, clear as crys- 
tal," which flows through the midst of heaven, 
and among the trees of healing leaves and 
constant fruit, is a river "proceeding out of 
the throne of God and of the Lamb." In such 
ways the power and love of God stand along 
with the perpetual activities and the sacred 
rest of heaven. It fits with the love of God 
that those who love Him should abide in the 
ceaseless consciousness of an imchangeable 
blessing. It lies within the almighty power 
of God to sustain their lives at this steadfast 
height. 

[297] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

Concerning the activities of heaven also we 
can see somewhat of how they stand naturally 
connected with thoughts of God, and with 
trust and love toward Him. We have ob- 
served that many of the occasions that move 
us to the present labors of life will cease to 
exist. In heaven if we are there, we shall not 
be driven to toil by the pinch of hunger or of 
cold. We shall not have the same concerns 
of government, nor the same need of protec- 
tion against the violence of individual men or 
of nations. We shall not have the same cares 
respecting our households and our social state. 
Whatever of these may continue, there will 
at least be change upon them in the removal 
from them of all that belongs with the actual 
experience of pain or hardship, or with the 
dread fear of personal or surrounding evil. In 
so far some motives to action would be re- 
moved. But new opportunities of action and 
new incentives to effort will more than fill 
their place. This great intensifying of the 
powers of life will spring chiefly from the near- 
ness into which we shall be brought to the 
thoughts of God and the knowledge of His 

[298] 



HEAVEN 

love. Heaven will be a place of large oppor- 
tunities for knowing the counsels and works 
of God. Even in outward things the change 
will be great. Heaven is a place of central 
and commanding observation. It overlooks 
the wide creation, built of God. Its highways 
go out among the stars, lighted of God. Its 
prospects cover the courses of providence, 
ordained of God, and unfolding from the first 
mornings of time. Heaven is itself the city 
of God. It lies nigh to Him. He dwells 
pecuharly within it. His graces and glories 
shine throughout it. It is full of Him. This 
knowledge of the works of God, this pervading 
and enlightening presence of God, must stir 
unspeakably the minds of those that dwell in 
heaven. Motives to action and joy in action, 
springing from love and trust, will be large, 
and will grow forever, beyond what is known 
on earth. 

The being of God Himself is greater and 
better than all other things. If one can think 
upon it, and with some likeness to it in reason, 
feeling and purpose, such thoughts on earth, 
and even with still sinful men, are large and 

[ 299 ] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

precious and absorbing beyond all that can be 
told of them. Far more they will be great and 
absorbing, refreshing and controlling to the 
intelligence of the holy man in heaven. When 
we think a little now of the manner in which 
the infinite greatness and goodness of God lie 
open to the inhabitants of heaven, surrounding 
them from the past, the present, and from all 
the coming ages, we can understand that there 
should be in heaven the endless service of 
praise and worship before God. Endless as- 
semblies there may not be, but the state of 
worship cannot end. On earth, in the midst 
of their common occupations, wise and rever- 
ent men grow to be worshipful. In heaven, 
with quickened reason and warmer love, what- 
ever they may do, they can never cease to 
worship God. 

Men from the earth too, who have been 
redeemed from sin, can never fail to be drawn 
by grateful memories and sacred affections 
toward the Lord Himself, the Redeemer of 
men. He will be there, the Leader and Com- 
panion and Head of all that enter heaven 
from the earth. Thus most sacred, most high, 

[ 300 ] 



HEAVEN 

most central in heaven, is "the glory of God 
that lightens it," and the Lamb that is the light 
thereof. 

Heaven is a place of perfect holiness with 
all its inhabitants. The highway toward it is 
one over which the unclean shall not pass. 
"There shall in no wise enter into it anything 
that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh 
abomination or maketh a lie, but they which 
are written in the Lamb's book of life." It 
is a land of everlasting righteousness and love, 
and of nothing else besides. It is a land of 
righteous, trustful and loving men. 

The worst of all the troubles of time come 
from wrong and darkness within ourselves. 
We shall be clear of these when we enter 
heaven. Outside ourselves, the worst of all 
the troubles of the earth are from the evil that 
is in other men, from weakness, from neglect, 
from indifference and coldness, from unfaith- 
fulness, from frauds and treacheries, from all 
the raging and darkening crowd of hatreds 
and cruelties and shames. It would be a bless- 
ing indeed if one might go apart himself, right- 
eous and faithful and true, into a land where 

[301] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

none of these the contrary things could ever 
enter. Heaven is such a land. If you enter 
it, you will never afterward be tried with evil 
men. You will never meet with any whom 
you may not safely love and trust. You will 
have no companions there except those whose 
righteousness has gone, tested and approved, 
past the bar of God. It is a happy lot, — if 
your righteousness itself passes the trial. 

Heaven is also a place of endless compan- 
ionship with faithful friends and worthy men. 
The false are without, the faithful are within. 
Heaven will have its riches of both mind and 
heart. There are the strong, the great in every 
work and art. They do bring the glory and 
honor of the nations into it. There are those 
— the many — whose glory and honor were first 
distinctly revealed in heaven. There are the 
men, women and children who have been faith- 
ful in their homes and their daily occupations, 
whose faithfulness shines in the light of 
heaven. There are entered all the ransomed 
of the Lord with songs and everlasting joy 
upon their heads. They take sweet counsel 
there together. Pleasing associations with 

[ 302 ] 



HEAVEN 

memories gathering upon them abide forever. 
Sacred affections endure unbroken. There 
is no end to heaven. If you enter there, you 
will go no more out forever. 

Heaven is a place of outward beauty and 
delight, appropriate to all these other things. 
The master Architect of all constructions and 
adornments prepares it. He makes its grace 
and beauty to befit its eternal righteousness. 
Heaven is a city showing forth the glory of 
God. The foundations of the wall of it are 
garnished with all manner of precious stones. 
It is a city of pure gold, clear as crystal, and 
its light is like a stone most precious. 

Heaven is a place near at hand. It is not 
far off and inaccessible. It can be reached 
from the earth. You can have even now your 
conversation — your manner of life — in heaven. 
You can lay up within yourself the precious 
things of heaven. Your sins, which make you 
unlike the heaven, can be pardoned. You can 
commit your soul to the faithful Son of God, 
who came from heaven for you. Then will be 
fulfilled in your behalf the sacred prayer He 
made, that you, believing in Him, should be 

[303] 



CERTAINTIES AND HOPES 

with Him where He is, and share His grace 
and behold His glory. 

I point you today to the open heaven, to 
the golden city, enlightened of God, to the 
general assembly of just and friendly men 
gathered within its walls. I set before you 
this lofty hope. This heaven of the Christian 
believer is full and rich, and it is close at hand. 
You can enter it. You must not miss it. I 
trust you will rise today and journey toward 
it. I trust you will go at the call of God within 
its gates, redeemed, renewed, rejoicing. 



[304] 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proce 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2006 

Preservationlechnoiogii 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATI 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
(724)779-2111 



